OPINION

Centinela Bridge Encampment

By Glenn Harrison

The Centinela bridge encampment was finally cleaned up on Jan. 31 after several years of disregard by police, indifference of the public, and neglect by internal city and county tangled agencies whose inability to find any opportunities for solution, resulted in an amassed housing construction of thousands of pounds of wood within the lattice beneath the Centinela bridge over the Ballona Creek Flood Channel. This was all visible via the Culver City bike path, and particularly from our building sitting parallel to the flood channel. Residents most closely located to the vagrants who were in somewhat hidden fashion, on the south side of the south supporting wall, were exposed to much of the worst of audio and visual activity ranging from regular bickering, to more intense fighting and likely rape of the one female residing with the four males there. The ongoing concern has been both environmental and humane, related to what was an initially small encampment beneath the Centinela bridge. This was specifically on the south side of south supporting wall of the Centinela bridge over the Ballona Creek Flood Channel, opposite the bike path along the north side of flood channel, with individuals climbing over the southwest bridge corner, and via bicycles in the flood channel, all illegal trespassing on public/county environmentally protected land. An additional encampment was constructed in recent months, about 60 yards south within the 90 freeway Centinela exit ramp landscape. It was also cleaned up the week prior to the bridge encampment, prompted apparently due to a late night 4 a.m. gunfight

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“WORK CLOTHES” (4/7/22) By PATTI VAROL

requiring police response. Vagrant summary: two to four Latin males, thin, 35 to 65 in age range, and one Latin female about 25, average weight, who resided there for two to four years, constructed illegal housing via ladders giving access to the lattice above the supporting bridge wall beneath the road, and tapped into power lines for lights, generators, and an amazing array of power saw equipment, constant sounds of construction, and even causing some transformer explosions. Oddly, this was all partially hidden during the last two years tandem construction of an apartment building on the northwest opposite bridge corner, where they were actually obtaining material. For the most part they kept to themselves and thankfully hadn’t drawn major expansion of residents, aside from additional visitors and possible patient dumping, displaying the evolution of yet another Skid Row. This barrage of illegal vagrant activity was of course a solid threat to protected marine environment via pollution and human waste. All notifications of this drew zero response, except for DPW at least making weekly visits for clearance of major trash debris. The other main concern was apparent abuse that has going on with the female who (with likely low education and intellect) had loud, raging, screaming tantrums on a seven to 10-day basis, lasting several minutes or less, sometimes with accompanied throwing of bottles and cans, such as the morning of Sep. 7 just after 6 a.m. with a loud screaming fit, and then went suddenly silent. One can discern being knocked unconscious is what may have occurred. The entire underlying point here is that these people require and deserve help! This just cannot be emphasized enough! Funds, resources and legal jurisdiction have recently been prioritized for this long, well overdue handling of the homeless situation in our city, (yet alone the nation/world), and very respectable progress has been made in nearby Venice. This requires full action of responsible departments to move all individuals toward the mental and physical aide that is certainly appropriate. So, after many attempted communications over the last couple of years without results, (with numerous records kept) via myself and other neighbors to the City Council, Department of Public Works, Sanitation and various other City and County agencies, all of which are interwoven and entangled in responsibility for dealing with this, we decided to alert the media, obtaining the interest of KCAL/CBS, which sent a reporter team to highlight the situation just a few weeks ago. Following this, I sent a letter to the Argonaut that was to be in the Jan. 27 issue and then pushed later after the coincidental notification of major cleanup posted just after that submission. Final warning was given Friday morning Jan. 28. The vagrants obviously took notice with quite a large accumulation of years of debris dumped from their dwellings. The large crew consisting of numerous departments working impressively together, accomplished a well-organized display of what can be done in a single day, for the removal of several years of the massive ‘housing’ constructed within the lattice beneath the Centinela bridge, that required a team of sanitation, parking and law enforcement, lift equipment and numerous dump trucks, finally concluding the enormous task at dusk. Social workers confirmed attempted offers of aide made available with firm denials of any interest. No one in their right mind would continue to prefer to languish in a permanent state of struggle for survival, prone to further physical and mental damage, crime, drugs, etc. This specific point is exactly where the line of intervention must be enforced, basically with proactive mandatory enrollment in mental facilities for the well-being of these individuals and safety of all citizens. It’s quite unfathomable that authorities don’t have logical discretion to make any arrests after such a clear number of violations have occurred ranging from a myriad of unauthorized entry, ecological wetland endangerment via trash and toxic debris, burning plastic, illegal tampering and unauthorized construction on city, public and/or county property, with several levels of intrusive damage to the structure of the Centinela bridge...all while the four primary culprits remained seated the entire day, just 50 yards west on the bike path, to only return beneath the bridge that night. So far, vagrant activity remains minimal with a couple returning below the bridge and others relocated along the bike path. In closing, this should sincerely have some serious levels of major logical and intellectual impact for the clear need of genuinely prioritizing all moral and ethical obligations for further prevention of this exact situation.

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