by Timothy Rutt
Following a meeting where residents complained about sheriff's deputies and dispatchers' poor responses to service calls, an ACONA volunteer was placed under arrest by deputies who were waiting for him in the parking lot of the Altadena Main Library.
A deputy on the scene said that Kendall Brown, 19, was under arrest for grand theft auto. Elliot Gold, one of the organizers of ACONA, said that he was told by deputies that Brown's fingerprints were found on the trunk of a stolen vehicle that had been recovered.
Brown had been in charge of the sign-in sheet during Tuesday night's meeting of the Altadena Coalition of Neighborhood Associations in the library Community Room. Brown was named the "Best Neighbor on the Block" for the Upside Down T neighborhood in 2011.
It was a meeting that was punctuated by several complaints about how sheriff's dispatchers and deputies handled some service calls. Residents around Lincoln Avenue said that they made several calls involving "some kids running around and shooting" in the neighborhood Saturday night, Oct. 29. They said that the deputy who responded was "nonchalant" and did not take a police report nor talk to any of several witnesses.
There were also complaints that the dispatchers who answer the calls -- Altadena deputies are dispatched by the Crescenta Valley station -- don't know the Altadena area well enough. One said, referring to the dispatchers, "They are yo-yos."
The complaints came during the audience question period, following a presentation on how to set up a neighborhood watch association. Natalie Salazar, director of the sheriff's department Community Law Enforcement Partnership Program said that "there's nothing more deleterious to a neighborhood watch program than lack of [law enforement] responsiveness."
One of the Lincoln Avenue neighborhood residents who complained about the sheriff's response said, "If that’s the way it is, if we have to arm ourselves, then let us know, ‘cause that’s what it seems to me."
After the meeting -- which also included a presentation by Athens Waste Services and county officials on the trash haul franchise, and a presentation by Jeff Sedlik of the Braewatch neighborhood watch group -- the attendees put away the chairs and cleaned up the room. As the attendees were leaving, they found the driveway to the library's parking lot blocked by an unmarked sheriff's vehicle. Brown was put in back of the car by several deputies, one of whom was making a video of the arrest.
UPDATE 11:30: Lt. Duane Allen of the Altadena Sheriff's office said that Brown was arrested for grand theft and remains in custody. At this time, he could not give details of the crime, Allen said, but "it wasn't recent."
