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Blood in the Sand: Paradise or Prison?
Yucca Valley, CA – On the edge of this town of almost 26,000 is a small, quaint community with street names like Robert, Ronald, David, Linda Lee and Marvin. You could almost imagine the characters from a 1950s sitcom skipping down these streets.
Except there is a low-lying danger beneath these streets as dangerous as leaking methane gas: GANGS!
Despite what some local reports and town leaders claim, gangland is growing in town. Residents of Paradise Valley are angry that of the few police on patrol in San Bernardino County their edge of town community, they believe, is the last on their list.
A long-time resident, known as ‘Charlie’ has lived there for almost forty years but no longer feels safe. He knows his life will be in danger by revealing his real name since gangs live right next door to him and his family. Doors must be kept locked at all times as if they were living in Los Angeles or Beirut, not the so-called rural community of Yucca Valley.
There are three gangs in Paradise Valley, according to the people who live there: skinheads, a Latino gang and Crips or Bloods which prowl the streets. One robbery about three days ago brought a police helicopter looking for the suspect (who was caught). But basically, since this district is now considered low-income, it has been left alone for crime to flourish. Graffiti has increased as has the drugs and its customer traffic.
One local had been working on his car so tested it by speeding next to the park. Another neighbor had to remind this individual that speeding next to a park could very well end in tragedy if a child gets killed in the street.
Charlie recounts a severe beating of a young girl. By the time police arrived in a nearby wash area, it was twenty minutes later and all the suspects had scattered. Charlie said to one of those who were watching the fight (beating) later that “No one was really wanting either side to win, but just wanted to see violence and blood.” High school students exit their bus at the stop ready to fight to show off their juvenile superiority.
“Police are spread too thin here,” said Charlie who is in his early seventies with his disabled daughter. He told his granddaughter that if she finds herself in a scary situation, where to kick a boy in his ’naughty bits.’ Charlie is not one to back down if the street is blocked with gang members trying to intimidate the residents.
He and his relatives had worked before with police in Search and Rescue missions so knows how hard most work and has much respect for them. Except for the lazy police who are almost off their shift and don’t care about doing more paperwork.
“I don’t know how long,” says the outspoken Charlie, “before one of them shoots me.”
Charlie also wants to know what is it that this Yucca Valley Deputy Town Manager Shane Stueckle actually does since there’s no evidence of any management being done where he lives.
Unless Deputy Town Manager Stueckle is trying to manage a prison farm which is sarcastically called, Felony Flats in Paradise Valley.
Our newest contributor is Dorthy Calvert of Flamingo Heights California. Dorthy can be read in many of the finest editorial pages in Southern California. Often opinionated to the point of distraction, Dorthy is set in her ways and is eager to tell you about those ways.
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otherwise known to those aware of this areas problems as “Parasite Valley”
Boy are you correct. I happened to be searching for old motocross bikes about 15 years ago, and I happened to get a lead on a bike I was looking for. Mind you this was 15 years ago and I tell you what, that was a real scarey experience at night. At that time it was tweekers and I could not get out of there fast enough. I didn’t buy the bike as it had been “tweekerized”, and they were tweeking big time.
Well, it’s true that when felons get kicked loose from prison, this is where they send them. Out in the desert in no-man’s land to keep them from going back to their old neighborhoods and gangs.
Is this the same perverted Dorthy Calvert that wrote the nasty editorial about off-roading families that appeared in the Hi-Desert Star and directed the readers to a pornographic website? She should be ashamed! Does the woman not realizes that children read our newspapers too.
I’d like it noted that on that very same cold and windy Saturday morning while she and others in the Basin were likely enjoying their coffee and reading her article trashing off-roading families, my off-roading family and the off-roading families that make up our local off-road club, the Friends of Giant Rock, were up on the Mesa cleaning up illegal dump sites!
If this is the same Dorthy Calvert, I consider her to be a sick and ignorant COW!