Bixby Park Area Attack: Man Allegedly Threatening Bystanders, Vandalizing Cars Allegedly Wounds Man Using Metal Object; Victim Is Taken To Hospital; Suspect Is Arrested

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Bixby Park Area Attack: Man Allegedly Threatening Bystanders, Vandalizing Cars Allegedly Wounds Man With Metal Object; Victim Is Taken To Hospital; Suspect Is Arrested

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(July 23, 2018, 3:30 p.m.) -- LBREPORT.com has learned that shortly after 7 a.m. today (Monday July 23), a man displaying the type of disturbed, threatening behavior that residents of the Bixby Park area (Cherry/Ocean) have described among area vagrants for well over a year, allegedly threatened bystanders while vandalizing cars, then allegedly attacked a man with a metal object and inflicted a laceration sufficiently serious to have LBFD transport the victim to a hospital.

LBPD Public Information Officer Benjamin Hearst says officers spotted an individual matching the suspect description and took him into custody. (LBREPORT.com is double-checking the booking charge to see if it was for assault with a deadly weapon.)

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In LBREPORT.com's opinion, context is relevant here. For well over a year, residents in the Bixby Park neighborhood (Cherry Ave./Ocean Blvd., 2nd district near border of 3rd Council district) have described on social networks and to city officials the presence of multiple visibly disturbed individuals displaying various threatening and anti-social behaviors. In 2017, area residents composed a plain spoken petition that demanded action; it quickly gathered over 1,000 signatures online. City officials offered condescending policy lectures that in our opinion amounted to justifications for current official dogma. They provided little if any assurance of meaningful change, effectively perpetuating the current ineffective and incompassionate response that doesn't help neighborhood residents OR help the visibly unwell vagrants who need more help than the City can provide.

Instead of running or actively supporting a reform-minded challenger who'd demand change, the residents' leaders accepted platitudes from incumbent pols and police brass; the group has now morphed into a "non-political" neighborhood watch [effectively assuring no political action to change the status quo.]

LBERPORT.com believes what happened this morning in the Bixby Park neighborhood will happen again, there or elsewhere in LB, until residents grasp that elections matter. Changing the status quo requires grown-up political action, not sheeplike acceptance. It requires unflinching consistent advocacy over time, for months before an election and in neighborhoods beyond one Council district.

Restoring neighborhood safety and respecting residents' quality of life are matters that should matter citywide.

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