At least three times recently, Long Beach police officers have swept across beaches near Downtown, forcing people camping there to leave at night, according to neighbors in the area.
And in recent weeks, police have also started emptying out the Junipero Beach parking lot, which had become a “free for all” of illegal and annoying activity, according to City Council Member Cindy Allen.
“People party and carry on all hours of the night, fireworks, cars doing burnouts, and parties,” Allen said. There was loud music, drugs and gang activity as well, she said.
Earlier this week, for instance, police said they found a gun in the car of a woman who’d driven onto the sand and gotten stuck late at night.
“The lot closes at 10 p.m. and folks are using this lot for illegal activities after it closes,” Allen said.
The complaints are not new. Last month, dozens of residents filled a community room at Bixby Park to tell Allen and two police commanders about their concerns.
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They asked for nightly patrols from bicycle officers, and some residents scoffed when they were told that wasn’t feasible.
“I will not put officers down on the bike path at nighttime,” LBPD Commander Shaleana Benson said. “It’s not safe for the officers to be on bicycles at night.”
“If it’s not safe for them, it’s not safe for us,” someone responded from the crowd.
Benson acknowledged the concerns, saying she would try to put officers in patrol cars and quads down on the beach at night, but she warned the department is short-staffed and there is other higher-priority crime.
“But what I can promise you is that when we’re available, I will have officers down there patrolling the area to see if we can mitigate the problems,” she said.
Over the past two weeks, neighbors have gotten a glimpse of that, with officers on loudspeakers telling people to leave the Junipero Beach lot when it closes.
Allen said she’s trying to get repairs on a broken parking arm that lets people drive in and out of the lot at all hours. She’s also pushing to get a locking gate installed at the bottom of the hill that leads to the beach.
The patrols have expanded beyond the parking lot as well.
Three times this week, officers have swept across Alamitos Beach and cleared everyone out, according to resident Bob Kruse, who calls police several times a week, asking them to remove people illegally camping on the sand at night.
He said it’s the most aggressive police have been about clearing off the beach in years.
Kruse said he was ecstatic about the move. He’s long pushed for more action, believing that consistently clearing the beach will keep people from setting up encampments there. After a recent Supreme Court ruling that lets cities more easily enforce anti-camping ordinances, he pushed city leaders to crack down.
These most recent sweeps though, have nothing to do with the ruling, according to LBPD spokesman Richard Mejia; they were motivated by the community’s complaints about fights, loud music, fireworks and other after-hours activity on the beach.
Long Beach’s top-level officials, such as the mayor and city manager, have been clear they don’t think amped-up enforcement is a way to solve homelessness.
They’ve pledged to focus on structural issues like affordable housing and mental health services.
“We’re focused on upstream prevention, long-term solutions, getting people help,” said Jennifer Rice Epstein, a spokesperson for the Long Beach Health Department.
But progress on those goals is often slower and less obvious. Long Beach saw a slight decline in the number of people on its streets this year, but shelters are still consistently at or near capacity, and the number of people who are chronically homeless has risen.
Almost immediately after police cleared campers of Alamitos Beach one night, they returned, Kruse said in an email.
Not clear how long the increased enforcement will last
“It is not going to be an overnight fix,” Commander Benson warned at last month’s community meeting.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to show police swept Alamitos Beach Thursday night as well.