Pasadena NAACP and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office Tuesday, Sept. 22, will be hosting a town hall on the efforts to combat crimes targeting Eaton fire survivors.
The event will be held at The Collaboratory, 540 W. Woodbury Road, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and will feature L.A. County DA Nathan Hochman. Crimes that will be covered include contractor fraud, financial elder abuse, vandalism, looting and rent gouging.
Capt. Ethan Marquez with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Altadena Station has provided monthly updates at Altadena Town Council meetings over the crime trends law enforcement has observed in the fire area.
Last week, Marquez urged residents to call 911 for emergencies or to call the Sheriff’s Department to report a crime. He also warned residents to watch out for attempted fraud.
Marquez said legitimate companies are never going to demand payment via Venmo or Zelle.
“If you have any suspicions you are welcome to call us and you can talk to a deputy to make sure that this is a legitimate business,” Marquez said.
He said the department had seen “a number of those incidents happen recently.”
In addition, Marquez said he met with contractors with multiple builds in Altadena who reported minor thefts on a job site of items including building materials and tools. Contractors are not always reporting these thefts, Marquez said, after weighing the hassle of reporting versus moving on with their work.
“And the problem with all of that is that if we don’t have the crime stats that we need, we’re fighting for resources, and if my crime stats just look wonderful all the time, then I don’t have the extra resources that I need to solve the problems that we have here,” Marquez said.
The Altadena Sheriff’s Station has an online tool to report minor crimes such as construction material or equipment theft.