Occasionally a car would crash into a mailbox or someone’s bushes. Residents suspect some of the interlopers of having sex in the hills behind their homes.

A few residents have ventured out to ask revelers to knock off their partying. They were sometimes met with hostility and threats, they say, including one person who pulled out a gun.

And then there are the visitors who leave graffiti, blare loud music and litter the street with condoms, used marijuana containers, broken beer bottles and other trash. There are more than ever now, residents say.

So while some who come to catch the sprawling view of the San Fernando Valley may think of Pacoima’s Hansen Hills lookout spot as a local gem, many residents of the area say its growing popularity has played out like a nightmare.

Residents’ concerns

Acquanetta Denson, a longtime resident who lives a few houses down from the lookout point, says her neighborhood sees a constant stream of cars throughout the night and day.

“It’s a drive-through,” Denson said during an interview last October. “There’s been several today. They go in and out to do their drugs, do their drinking.”

Denson, who grew up in the area, said it was not always this way, and believes she is watching her neighborhood deteriorate.

“It was a very well-kept neighborhood,” she said. “We’ve never had graffiti on our signs, on the street, people hanging out like this, just no respect.”

Denson said their frustrations are exacerbated because complaints to local police and local officials seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Calls to the police station and city parking enforcement office on a near nightly basis have been of no use, said Nathan Murray.

What often plays out is a game of cat and mouse, he said.

When the police did respond, Murray said, they would often arrive late and “maybe they’ll run them off.” Meanwhile, the visitors seem to expect the police to leave quickly, and would “literally park down the street there, waiting,” he said.

Other residents also complained that the police never seem to cite anyone, even when it is clear there is an open alcohol bottle in the car, marijuana use and other illegal activity, including an instance when visitors were using a helium tank to get high.

“It was a very well-kept neighborhood. We’ve never had graffiti on our signs, on the street, people hanging out like this, just no respect.”

— Acquanetta Denson, longtime Pacoima resident

Cathy Begelfer, a former resident, said she has seen police officers pour out bottles of alcohol – and then let people go.

“Are you telling me you’re going to let them drive when they’ve been drinking? Are you kidding me?” she said.

A lower priority

LAPD officials said in an interview last November that there does not appear to be any cause for Hansen Hills residents to fear for their safety.

They characterized the issues raised by the residents as lower priority compared to other, “violent” crimes in the Foothill division, and say they are allocating their resources to where they are needed the most.

The area’s senior lead officer, Adriana Munguia, said during an interview in November that in the “last two years, there’s been only 10 calls for service there” to the lookout point.

The calls for service include complaints about people creating a disturbance, loud music from a car or house, possible narcotics activity and groups of people drinking, according to Munguia.

Munguia said she also assigned extra patrols to the area, pointing to about 20 additional visits the police made of their own accord.

Foothill Division Captain Ernest Eskridge said none of the visits resulted in any citations. Munguia said the suspected offenders always seemed to be a few steps ahead of police.

There is sometimes a “lookout” warning that the police were approaching, Eskridge added.

Eskridge also said the Foothill Division has a duty to prioritize other, more serious calls in the area.

“It’s just a matter of, you can’t have people dying, you can’t have people getting robbed and shot, you can’t have people getting raped, cars being taken, cars being broken into,” he said.

“We don’t have any of that — that we know — that’s occurring at that location, so the areas that they are occurring at, we are giving more attention to and rightfully so,” he said.

‘Why are you doing nothing?’

But Denson and others insist the problems in their neighborhood need to be taken much more seriously.

“There is a connection” to more serious crime, she said. “Why are you doing nothing? The small does lead to the big (crimes).”

Murray also said he is concerned about the “general safety” of the area, and does not want his children exposed to any illegal or unsafe activity.

“I grew up here,” Murray said. “I got to come back. I’m trying to raise my family, but they’re getting a totally different picture of what this neighborhood is like than when I grew up here.”

He and others insist there is more criminal activity than the police realize. They point to an unoccupied house not far from the lookout point that has been scrawled repeatedly by graffiti that residents say appear gang-related.

The owner of the home has slowly been repairing it after it was damaged by a fire, but in the meantime, the house seems to have attracted some trespassers, via a hill that goes behind the yards of many of the residents and connects it to the lookout point.

Other unsettling red flags include suspected prostitution activity, and a stabbing death that occurred during a party a few blocks away in October 2016.

When asked about the stabbing, Eskridge responded that he went to the crime scene when it happened, and considers it “an isolated incident.”

Hansen Hills resident Allen Macon’s Pacoima neighborhood that overlooks the San Fernando Valley has become a favorite spot for partiers. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Hansen Hills resident Allen Macon’s Pacoima neighborhood that overlooks the San Fernando Valley has become a favorite spot for partiers. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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The end of Empire Dr. early Saturday morning, October 28, 2017. A group of neighbors in Pacoima’s Hansen Hills have long understood the appeal of their hillside vantage point, which offers a sprawling view of the San Fernando Valley. So when people from out of the area come into their neighborhood, they have welcomed them. But in recent years, their beloved lookout point has become a nightmare, as a constant flow of cars stream into the small cul de sac that overlooks the view. The visitors blast music, drink alcohol and use marijuana (the street is littered with Rx bottles and paper bags from cannabis dispensaries), climb onto the hillside in their backyards to have sex or defecate, and sometimes there are so many cars that they block the entryway of the residents into their homes. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

The end of Empire Dr. early Saturday morning, October 28, 2017. A group of neighbors in Pacoima’s Hansen Hills have long understood the appeal of their hillside vantage point, which offers a sprawling view of the San Fernando Valley. So when people from out of the area come into their neighborhood, they have welcomed them. But in recent years, their beloved lookout point has become a nightmare, as a constant flow of cars stream into the small cul de sac that overlooks the view. The visitors blast music, drink alcohol and use marijuana (the street is littered with Rx bottles and paper bags from cannabis dispensaries), climb onto the hillside in their backyards to have sex or defecate, and sometimes there are so many cars that they block the entryway of the residents into their homes. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

The end of Empire Dr. early Saturday morning, October 28, 2017. A group of neighbors in Pacoima’s Hansen Hills have long understood the appeal of their hillside vantage point, which offers a sprawling view of the San Fernando Valley. So when people from out of the area come into their neighborhood, they have welcomed them. But in recent years, their beloved lookout point has become a nightmare, as a constant flow of cars stream into the small cul de sac that overlooks the view. The visitors blast music, drink alcohol and use marijuana (the street is littered with Rx bottles and paper bags from cannabis dispensaries), climb onto the hillside in their backyards to have sex or defecate, and sometimes there are so many cars that they block the entryway of the residents into their homes. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)



The end of Empire Dr. early Saturday morning, October 28, 2017. A group of neighbors in Pacoima’s Hansen Hills have long understood the appeal of their hillside vantage point, which offers a sprawling view of the San Fernando Valley. So when people from out of the area come into their neighborhood, they have welcomed them. But in recent years, their beloved lookout point has become a nightmare, as a constant flow of cars stream into the small cul de sac that overlooks the view. The visitors blast music, drink alcohol and use marijuana (the street is littered with Rx bottles and paper bags from cannabis dispensaries), climb onto the hillside in their backyards to have sex or defecate, and sometimes there are so many cars that they block the entryway of the residents into their homes. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Hansen Hills resident Allen Macon’s Pacoima neighborhood that overlooks the San Fernando Valley has become a favorite spot for partiers. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Hansen Hills resident Allen Macon’s Pacoima neighborhood that overlooks the San Fernando Valley has become a favorite spot for partiers. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

The end of Empire Dr. early Saturday morning, October 28, 2017. A group of neighbors in Pacoima’s Hansen Hills have long understood the appeal of their hillside vantage point, which offers a sprawling view of the San Fernando Valley. So when people from out of the area come into their neighborhood, they have welcomed them. But in recent years, their beloved lookout point has become a nightmare, as a constant flow of cars stream into the small cul de sac that overlooks the view. The visitors blast music, drink alcohol and use marijuana (the street is littered with Rx bottles and paper bags from cannabis dispensaries), climb onto the hillside in their backyards to have sex or defecate, and sometimes there are so many cars that they block the entryway of the residents into their homes. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

The end of Empire Dr. early Saturday morning, October 28, 2017. A group of neighbors in Pacoima’s Hansen Hills have long understood the appeal of their hillside vantage point, which offers a sprawling view of the San Fernando Valley. So when people from out of the area come into their neighborhood, they have welcomed them. But in recent years, their beloved lookout point has become a nightmare, as a constant flow of cars stream into the small cul de sac that overlooks the view. The visitors blast music, drink alcohol and use marijuana (the street is littered with Rx bottles and paper bags from cannabis dispensaries), climb onto the hillside in their backyards to have sex or defecate, and sometimes there are so many cars that they block the entryway of the residents into their homes. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)



Hansen Hills resident Allen Macon’s Pacoima neighborhood that overlooks the San Fernando Valley has become a favorite spot for partiers. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

The end of Empire Dr. early Saturday morning, October 28, 2017. A group of neighbors in Pacoima’s Hansen Hills have long understood the appeal of their hillside vantage point, which offers a sprawling view of the San Fernando Valley. So when people from out of the area come into their neighborhood, they have welcomed them. But in recent years, their beloved lookout point has become a nightmare, as a constant flow of cars stream into the small cul de sac that overlooks the view. The visitors blast music, drink alcohol and use marijuana (the street is littered with Rx bottles and paper bags from cannabis dispensaries), climb onto the hillside in their backyards to have sex or defecate, and sometimes there are so many cars that they block the entryway of the residents into their homes. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Hansen Hills resident Allen Macon’s Pacoima neighborhood that overlooks the San Fernando Valley has become a favorite spot for partiers. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Hansen Hills resident Allen Macon’s Pacoima neighborhood overlooks the San Fernando Valley. It has become a favorite spot for partiers who residents say have trashed the area. Macon, who has a direct view of a popular lookout point, said he has been reporting issues to the police for the past 10 years. He put together a meeting in August between his neighbors and his councilwoman, Monica Rodriguez, to raise the issue. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Hansen Hills resident Allen Macon’s Pacoima neighborhood overlooks the San Fernando Valley. It has become a favorite spot for partiers who residents say have trashed the area. Macon, who has a direct view of the area’s popular lookout point, said he has been reporting issues to the police for the past 10 years. He put together a meeting in August between his neighbors and his councilwoman, Monica Rodriguez, to raise the issue. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)



Residents say LAPD officials are downplaying the crime level in their area. Denson said during a recent neighborhood watch meeting, she tried to bring up homicides that have occurred in the Hansen Hills area. Munguia, who was at the meeting, seemed to contradict what Denson felt was true, which was that there have indeed been some “violent murders” in the area.

“She just brushed it off as though I was crazy,” Denson said.

And a disconcerting conversation with an officer last October seemed to confirm to Denson that the police were uninterested in cracking down on the activity in their neighborhood.

On a particularly “bad night,” Denson said, she and her neighbors called for the police to help break up a large gathering of people at the lookout, but officers refused to write up a report or hand out citations.

Based on Denson’s account, the officer told her that “they decide whether or not that’s something that they want to do, and for this area, they don’t do it. And unless their captain tells them to start doing it, they will not.”

Denson said she then told the officer that if this were a neighborhood in Encino, citations likely would have been given out, so “what’s the difference?”

According to Denson, the officer’s response was, “Well, for that area we do, and for this area we don’t.”

“Ever since, I’ve just lost it,” Denson said.

Eskridge said in a statement that he was not aware of the incident, adding that officers “do not need my approval to take appropriate action.”

Murray said he believes visitors seemed to be “taking advantage of a situation that could have been easily dealt with.”

“But because of the lack of response, because of the lack of the … importance to the LAPD, that’s why it’s blossomed into what it is right now,” he said.

A visit from the captain

Allen Macon, another longtime resident, is usually the one out the morning after, picking up the trash, which he said has included condoms, drug paraphernalia, food containers and entire lawn chairs and strollers.

Macon said he is embarrassed by the mess left behind by careless visitors, and does not want his friends and family to see the trash when they visit.

“I’ve been sweeping up that dead-end like it were my job to clean up after them twice a week,” he said.

Macon, who has a direct view of the lookout point, said he has been reporting issues to the police for the past 10 years. He put together a meeting in August between his neighbors and his councilwoman, Monica Rodriguez, to raise the issue.

Tran Le, a spokeswoman for Rodriguez, said in December that “the councilwoman is committed to addressing these concerns for our residents in Hansen Hills and throughout the district.”

But for a long time, not much changed.

So Macon said he was “flabbergasted” when the LAPD’s Foothill division captain showed up one morning in January.

“Are you the captain?” he remembers asking him, not quite believing it.

“And you must be Allen,” he recalls the captain saying.

The captain, Eskridge, said he had come by after a Daily News reporter inquired about the complaints in the area, according to Macon.

Macon, who was the neighborhood watch block captain for the area before stepping down because of health concerns, said that he has been a resident for 25 years, and this is “the first time I get to meet the captain, to find out what was really going on.”

The captain seemed to be responsive to his concerns, and was quick to offer solutions, Macon said. Eskridge said he would look into getting the curb painted red to prohibit parking at all times. And he plans to have a “live” surveillance camera installed — an improvement over the non-working, dummy camera that had been put up at as a deterrent at one point, before it was eventually knocked down.

Macon said the captain’s visit was the first time anyone seemed to be taking his suggestions and complaints seriously.

“I feel a little bit better about it,” he said. “I think he’s being an honest man, because he came up to see for himself.”