Carolyn Seitz, who is working with the Altadena Sheriff's Station, recently sent this out to the newsgroups regarding the auto vandalism wave Sept. 26:
Greetings to you all and thank you again for being willing to communicate with me so I could provide useful information to the Sheriff's Department about several incidents of tagging reported on your vehicles.
I apologize for the delay in responding. Most of you are aware that the Altadena Sheriff's Station is currently undergoing renovation and as a result, calls to the Altadena Station are being answered at the Crescenta Valley Station. As a result, it took longer than normal to be able to isolate the phone calls you made to the Sheriff's Department so the Captain and his leadership team could listen to them.
Captain McLean is extending his apologies for what may well have been a failure of some Sheriff's Department personnel to respond timely to your calls for service, in particular on the morning of September 26th. The response for some of you may not have been what you expected and it wasn't what the Captain expects.
He has taken corrective action. A memo was prepared and distributed describing the incident you reported and a reminder to the deputies that it is the expectation of the Captain and his Leadership Team that all Altadena residents should be treated by Station personnel in the same way they would want their families to be treated if a similar incident occurred in their own neighborhoods. We all expect a courteous response and timely action to be taken.
In addition, they are formulating a mandatory training for all Altadena Station personnel and that training will take place shortly.
He has also asked that you all be told that while much of the time, the response from the Altadena Station is excellent and meets the expectations of the community, those times when things don't go as well are disappointing, not only to you, but to the Captain, and he will continue to make an effort to take timely corrective action.
Please continue to speak up any time something happens when you need a response from the Sheriff's Department and don't get the kind of response you think appropriate. It may be the only way he will know when there is an issue.
Please continue to report incidents like the kind of vandalism that occurred in your neighborhood, no matter how small that incident may seem. It may be the only way that the Detective Bureau can spot crime patterns as they develop.
Please continue to report any suspicious activity. The partnership between the Sheriff's Department and your neighborhood is a vital part of the crime prevention/crime fighting effort and the strength of that partnership is equally shared between you and the Sheriff's Department. Working together, we can have an impact on crime, and we can keep our community safer.
Thank you again for making your concerns known. It is appreciated.
If you have questions, comments or other concerns about the vandalism incident or any other issue, please feel free to let me know.
