INSIDE INGLEWOOD-The Inglewood Police Department (IPD) has failed to report a number of crimes to the public via CrimeMapping.com, the most serious crime being a shooting homicide that took the life of Antwain McConnell, 30, on September 14.
That murder has been confirmed by the LA County Coroner, the LA Times Homicide blog and—last but certainly not least—CityWatch LA in the story.On October 9, 2013, IPD Senior Lead Officer (SLO) Nicole Loudermilk, a 20-year veteran of IPD, announced that IPD’s Web site would no longer make available crime statistics to the public. She made the comments at a block club meeting at the IPD’s Beat 3 community police center at 2901 W. Manchester after announcing that a representative for CrimeMapping.com would be speaking at the subsequent block club meeting. (See related story.)
“We’re going to have the person from CrimeMapping on November 20th, who’s going to basically show us how to log on and find crime in our city,” said Loudermilk during the videotaped event.
Like the murder of McConnell, that CrimeMapping rep never showed up.
Moreover, Crimemapping.com did not start reporting crime for Inglewood until April, 2014.
Loudermilk has since been promoted, and there is no SLO for the area of Inglewood she claimed to represent.
The person who promoted Loudermilk, IPD’s chief, Mark Fronterotta, was hand-picked by Inglewood’s mayor, James T. Butts, in January, 2013.
Butts was an IPD officer for 19 years prior to being tapped to be Santa Monica’s police chief. He ran for mayor in 2010 and after two run-offs became mayor. In January, 2013, he appointed his former subordinate, Fronterotta, for IPD chief. “I was his first supervisor when he went to patrol after graduating from the police academy,” said Butts the day that that Fronterotta was confirmed. (See related story.)
In April of that same year, the first of 35 unsolved Inglewood shooting homicides occurred on April 5 along the 8000 block of Maitland Avenue. Dashon Alexander Williams, 36, was shot by two men after being invited outside his house on South 3rd Avenue. He was shot on the front lawn of a house where this former community newspaper co-principal had a newspaper prepared for delivery, in a spy that was just outside the nearby houses’ security camera angles.
Since then, a January 24 story in the LA Times discussed the number of deaths in 2013: “At least 17 people were murdered in Inglewood last year, according to the Homicide Report. According to the Los Angeles Times blog, the city was the 21st most deadly neighborhood out of LA County’s 270 neighborhoods.”
Butts is presently running to maintain his seat as Inglewood’s mayor. A number of flyers claim that under Butts, “violent crime is down.” No statistics were provided, however, and with a number of known crimes not reported to CrimeMapping.com, such statistics may not be available to anyone outside the IPD and the mayor’s office.
“We’re trying to give you information,” said Loudermilk (photo) at the October block club meeting. “I can only give you information that I can offer.”
Neither Fronterotta, Loudermilk nor Butts responded to repeated requests for comment.
(Randall Fleming is a veteran journalist and magazine publisher. He has worked at and for the New York Post, the Brooklyn Spectator and the Los Feliz Ledger. He is currently editor-in-chief at the Morningside Park Chronicle, a weekly newspaper based in Inglewood, CA and on-line at www.MorningsideParkChronicle.com. Mr. Fleming’s views are his own and do not reflect the views of CityWatch.) Photo credit: Randall Fleming.
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 87
Pub: Oct 28, 2014
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