From midnight to midnight on Friday, LAPD’s special task force executed a mission which they conduct every 28 days, which resulted in about 34 arrests. The majority of the arrests were executed during daylight hours on Ocean Front Walk and included a large number of people with outstanding warrants.

Luckily, Venice Beach doesn’t have to wait another 28 days, as increased enforcement and jailing people for offenses officers would normally write tickets for will continue through the weekend, and on every weekend through the Summer. Mounted officers, motorcycle officers and the violent crimes task force will continue to help in these efforts as added resources.

Although there were 34 arrests, there were still also plenty of tickets issued for offensive infractions such as smoking in the park.

DART is a mobile command post which contains a full communications system that is capable of monitoring and dispatching emergency services during disasters to provide temporary shelter for animals and front-line veterinary care. DART works with local, state, and national agencies to help families and their animals with medical, food and housing assistance.

Formed in 1993, DART is uniquely capable of caring for the animal victims of disaster. Staffed by spcaLA volunteers, humane officers, veterinary staff and other professionals, DART has deployed to fires, riots, earthquakes, hurricanes and other catastrophic situations, including hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike, as well as the 1994 Northridge earthquake and the Station, Malibu, and San Diego California Wildfires.

DART equipment consists of an equipped mobile command center, portable kenneling, horse trailers and field rescue vehicles.

Thanks to the support of generous donors, DART has saved countless animals after national disasters like Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike, as well as local widldfires, earthquakes and riots. In fact, DART was among the first responders during the 2009 “Station” fire, the worst wildfire in California History.

To donate to this amazing cause, visit http://spcala.com/aps/dart_main.php

We just spoke with Lt. Bert commanding officer of Pacific Division area detectives in response to the increased activity on the scanner today. Lt. Bert informed us that today was part of an ongoing mission through the Pacific Division where they deploy as substantial amount of officers approximately every 28 days as an increased enforcement program. Although this operation had been scheduled prior to the recent unusual violent crimes on the Boardwalk, he did decide to deploy extra teams along Palms where there have been a rash of robberies, and with the homeless outreach, undercover, mounted and uniformed officers along Ocean Front Walk.

As part of this mission, and to effect the recent tenor along the boardwalk, instead of issuing tickets for jailable offenses, suspects cited for the very common open container, narcotics use in public and other common boardwalk infractions are being taken directly to jail and booked for their crimes. “These are all jailable offenses,” said Lt. Bert. “We are not sending a message of no-tolerance, but one that lets people know we are taking enforcement at the beach very seriously.”

The metro mounted police will be deployed today at 1 p.m., and this mission which started this morning will extend for a full 24 hours. There will also be the newly increased police presence this weekend and on upcoming weekends along the boardwalk.

Captain Jon Peters from our Local Pacific Division of LAPD discusses the types of increased patrols that will start in Venice Beach this weekend, and also how the days of lax enforcement are now OVER.

Video by Tony Vera.

We confirmed from the Pacific Division that “approximately 100″ extra officers will be on patrol this weekend, and may be a part of weekend patrols through the Summer. Great news!

From the LA Weekly Blogs:
Looks like the LAPD is sending in the troops following at least three weekends of violence on and near the beach in Venice, including a stabbing last weekend and a shooting the weekend before that.

Pacific Division leaders have requested the help of the department’s elite Metropolitan Division, home of the original SWAT team. That request was granted, says Pacific Capt. Jon F. Peters.

He tells the Weekly:

We have some additional resources coming from Metro Division that will supplement our resources at the beach. We’ll have a more visible presence on Ocean Front Walk.

Tourists, visitors and beach-goers will “be safe and feel safe,” Peters promised.

On Sunday just before sunset, when police traditionally clear out the weekly drum circle, a young man was stabbed and subsequently hospitalized in stable condition.

The Sunday before that marked at least a second week of fighting in the drum circle. And the previous Saturday a young man was critically wounded in a shooting near 17th Avenue and Ocean Front Walk.

That attack followed a basketball-court gathering that was “a coordinated event of gangs from outside the area coming here through social networking,” Peters said.

“It’s not something we see everyday.”

While the captain declined to call it a gang-related shooting per se, he did say “we’re handling that as a gang crime and we believe there are some gang implications to it.”

Meanwhile, the drum circle’s criminal element is a whole different matter, fueled, police say, by an influx of young, aggressive homeless people to the area.

Peters says some of those folks come from the Pacific Northwest and sometimes pray on the “local” older homeless.

“A lot of these younger folks are form the Pacific Northwest and would pass through on their way to San Diego and beyond,” he said. “In the last year or two they’ve stayed. They’re living this way by choice. And they do cause a lot problems for us.”

Are they attracted by the preponderance of pot shops in Venice?

“I do think that’s part of the attraction, yes,” Peters said.

For now police are limited in what they can do to control the Sunday drum circle, which starts in the mid-afternoon under a pagoda and moves to the sand north of Windward Avenue as it gathers steam.

Venice activist and street musician Zuma Dogg says “I don’t think they’ll be able to ban the drum circle. It’s a constitutional gathering of free speech, which the [California] Coastal Commission has said you can’t touch.”

Participants, who have been doing this since the 1990s, as far as we can remember, have a First Amendment right to gather and express themselves, although police have traditionally cleared them out at sunset.

In past years the crowds have been peace-loving, tie-dyed, dread-lock types. Peters:

There’s kind of a different group of folks, a fringe group, attaching themselves to this event — some of them with a criminal intent. Those are the folks we’re concerned about and we’ll be stepping up our enforcement efforts in dealing with them.

The City Attorney’s office is also exploring ways ordinances can be enforced against the circle or rowdy participants, he says.

For now, the captain says, police will aggressively enforce the law against those with open containers of alcohol, beach-goers who are drunk in public, and folks who are doing drugs.

Zuma Dogg says he wishes cops would stop their “broken windows” policing along the boardwalk — where, he says, any little violation gets written up in hopes of drawing a hard line against crime — in favor of cracking down on serious criminals.

He rants:

This month while I was performing and leaving I was surrounded by about five LAPD officers hassling me. Hassling Zuma Dogg for singing ‘Don’t Stop Believing.’ Sending undercover cops to bust an incense seller. That’s a lot of LAPD time and resources. Meanwhile someone’s getting stabbed at the drum circle.

And summer hasn’t even begun.

“The good thing is a lot of the stuff we’ve seen occurring has brought focus and attention to the issue, and I think we’re in a good position to turn things around now,” Peters says. “We can turn this tide.”

(We have a call into local Councilman Bill Rosendahl’s office to see if there was any response planned on his end).

I was at the DMV the other day, and as I was leaving I saw an automated machine for car registration. The DMV website touts that the machines deliver registration stickers and renewals in minutes!

Getting your vehicle registration stickers just got easier.

The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) announced today new Self Service Terminals designed to get vehicle registration stickers and cards into customers’ hands in a few minutes or less. The terminals are now available in field offices throughout the greater Los Angeles/Orange County area.

“Our Internet registration renewal option is very popular and used by more than 15,000 people daily. These machines bring that same connectivity to customers who do not have access to the Internet, need registration immediately, or need to use cash,” said DMV Director George Valverde. “Our customers will leave holding their new registration and sticker without an appointment and without waiting in line.”

Self-service terminals with no wait times have been deployed at the following offices:

Los Angeles County:
Arleta: 14400 Van Nuys Blvd.
Bell Gardens: 6802 S. Garfield
Compton: 2111 S. Santa Fe Ave.
Culver City: 11400 W. Washington Blvd.
Glendale: 1335 W. Glenoaks Blvd
Inglewood: 621 N. La Brea Ave.
Lancaster: 1110 W. Ave.
Los Angeles: 3615 S. Hope St.
Montebello: 424 N. Wilcox Ave
Newhall: 24427 Newhall Ave
Torrance: 1785 W. 220th St.
W. Hollywood: 936 N. Formosa Ave.
Winnetka: 20725 Sherman Way

RiversideCounty:
6425 Sycamor Canyon Blvd., Riverside

Orange County:
Costa Mesa: 650 W. 19th St.
Santa Ana: 1330 E. First St.
Westminster: 13700 Hoover St.

San Diego County:
San Ysidro: 6111 Business Center Court
San Diego-Clairemont 4375 Derrick Drive
Chula Vista: 30 N. Glover Ave
El Cajon: 1450 Graves Ave
Escondido: 725 N. Escondido Blvd.

San Bernardino County
1310 N. Waterman Ave. San Bernardino

The easy to use terminals with big touch screen monitors accept payments by cash, electronic check, credit, or debit card. The terminal is much like an ATM at a bank and directions are given in English and Spanish.

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Don’t Stand In Line, Go Online! Doing business with the DMV has never been easier. The DMV offers an array of services to customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through its Web site (www.dmv.ca.gov), including online appointments for written and drive tests; vehicle registration and driver license renewals, selection of personalized license plates, changes of address and payment of fees via secure debit transactions. Customers can also effect transactions by calling DMV customer service at (800) 777-0133. DMV is a department under the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency.

The Venice Historical Society cuts the ribbon on the first step in fully restoring the columns all along Windward Ave, paying respects to how things were when Abbot Kinney blessed Venice with his longstanding impact.

Video by Tony Vera! He’s everywhere!