by Liz Mullen
Off-duty officers from the Redondo, Hermosa and Manhattan Beach police departments have been working at the Eaton Fire in Altadena over the past week.
Officers are patrolling the fire site to prevent looting and other criminal activity as well as providing security and aid to the shelter for Eaton fire victims who have been evacuated from their homes.
“Every day for the last four or five days we have sent four to six officers,” Hermosa Beach Police Department Sgt. Matt Franco told Easy Reader on Tuesday. The officers are not on duty locally, so the HBPD is still providing the same police presence it always does in Hermosa, Franco said.
Many of the people evacuated to shelters for the Eaton Fire are grieving a loss and there are reporters, as well as people bringing donations to the shelter. The police are there to maintain order and provide security, Franco said.
HBPD officers are also patrolling inside the areas that the Eaton fire has devoured. In the week since the fires started police had arrested more than 40 people for crimes inside the evacuated fire zones, most of them for looting the abandoned houses and damaged structures.
“Fortunately our officers have not been involved in any of those arrests,” Franco said.
Officers would want to help neighbors in any case, Franco said, but they are obligated to go to the fire zones under an agreement with the County. The Law Enforcement Mutual Aid System was established in 1961. Under the agreement between the county and more than 80 cities in the Los Angeles area, police agencies agree to provide officers and help to one another when there is a catastrophic event or emergency.
Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Torrance, El Segundo, Hawthorne, Inglewood and Palos Verdes Estates are part of Area G within the agreement. It’s not the first time South Bay police have been sent out to provide assistance during a disaster.
“We have a crew of 25 to 50 officers and we go anywhere,” Redondo Beach Police Department Lt. Wayne Windman said. “We were up in the mudslides in Montecito. We do security and patrols anywhere that is needed.”
RBPD has been sending seven officers a day to the Eaton Fire, Windman said.
Both Windman and Franco said that officers doing fire duty begin by driving to the Inglewood Police Department, which is the leader of the South Bay platoon.
Police cars from multiple cities then caravan up to the Rose Bowl where they are given their assignments for the Eaton Fire, according to Inglewood Police Department Chief Mark Fronterotta. “These are off-duty personnel and we head up there as a unit in a column,” Fronterotta said.
Those officers assigned to go into the fire area are given N95 masks and goggles and Fronterotta said he tells the officers to make sure they wear them. “These fires are burning everything — asbestos, tires,” he said.
In addition to patrolling for criminal behavior, the officers are also enforcing the 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, Fronterotta said. A special unit of the Sheriff’s Department has the job of searching for human remains.
On Sunday, Jan. 12, Fronterotta drove through what was left of fire-impacted Altadena. As bad as it looks on television, it is worse when you see it in person, he said.
“It was gut-wrenching, the devastation,” Fronterotta said. “Blocks and blocks of homes reduced to rubble, just a chimney standing. Cars burnt out to their shells.”
Here and there a home was left standing, but survivors were rare.
“I went through 10, 20, 30 blocks and the homes that remained standing I could count on one hand,” Fronterotta said. “I was not really that familiar with that neighborhood, very old neighborhood, old homes, beautiful homes. It’s very sad.”
Although the cities initially bear the costs of sending officers out to the Eaton Fire, all city expenses will be reimbursed by FEMA, Fronterotta said.
In addition to working the Eaton Fire as part of the mutual aid agreement, RBPD officers were asked to provide assistance by the Santa Monica Police, according to Windman. “When …the fire was coming close to Santa Monica, they requested us, independently,” Windman said.
Man found dead in ocean identified as guitarist Beej Chaney
The man whose body washed ashore off of Hermosa Beach earlier this month has been identified as Blaine Chaney, better known as Beej Chaney, singer, guitarist and co-founder of the punk/new wave band The Suburbs.
Chaney was 67. As previously reported, the body was found at the waterline at about 7 p.m. Sunday Jan. 5 and HBPD said there was no reason to suspect foul play. It appeared to be an accidental drowning.
Chaney lived in the Hermosa Beach area and was known to swim in the ocean almost daily, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. Suburbs drummer Hugo Klaers told the Star Tribune that Chaney survived a near death event when he swam in the ocean last year. On that occasion, Chaney was in a coma and his body temperature dropped to 75 degrees, according to Klaers.
Chaney, who grew up in the Twin Cities area, was supposed to call Klaers the night of his death.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner had not yet determined a cause of death for Chaney, pending further investigation. ER
