Neighbors patrol community with guns and dogs to protect from uptick in crime
LAS VEGAS NV June 24 2019 Several people living in La Villa Vegas Mobile Home Park describe their daily lives as a cycle of vagrancy and crime.
“It’s dangerous,” says Daniel Winchester. “And most of us are seniors.”
Winchester has lived in the park on and off over the course of 30 years.
He says he patrols the park several times every night to keep the growing homeless population from taking over the area.
“I carry a firearm,” Winchester says.
“Anywhere else in town I don’t carry, but here I always carry.”
Both Winchester and his neighbor Janelle Lowrance say the problem grew out of control when most of the street lamps in his neighborhood disappeared, and the park management, Patriot Mobile Home Parks, pulled the on-site manager from the property.
“It’s scary even though I have this big German Shepherd,” Lowrance says.
She says every morning the homeless emerge from vacant mobile homes in the park.
“There goes the homeless people again, out for the morning,” she says. “The solution would be to get the lights on first thing.”
Patriot Parks Management tells 13 Action News that it has replaced the lighting multiple times, but they get broken or stolen frequently.
They also say the on-site manager was pulled from the park for security reasons.
“I’m about ready to move,” Winchester says. “I hate to move, but it seems like all of the homeless from downtown have moved this way and then stopped.”
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department says the Community Policing Division has been aware of the problem, and most of it has stemmed from a single vacant mobile home owned by P.P.M.
Police say they have responded to 31 calls for service to the area since April 1, most are domestic or drug related.
They say P.M.M. has been working with Code Enforcement, the Health District, and Las Vegas Fire and Rescue to clean up the park.
KTNV
