How Safe Is Glendale? Depends on Whom You Ask

They were sitting at the end of the bar, close to the music, two women dressed up and bejeweled for a night on the town. Jax Bar & Grill is as jazzy as Glendale gets, a place where grown-ups go to dine, drink and be merry, floating on the mellow notes of live saxophone.

Jo Anne Sitjar and Laura Trinidad, friends since the age of 7, grew up over the river and up the hill in Silver Lake. Graduated from John Marshall High in ‘76, between the classes that produced such illustrious alumni as Judge Lance A. Ito and Heidi Fleiss. Jo Anne lives in Glendale and Laura still lives in Silver Lake.

Native Angelenos tend to know their turf. These women were qualified, then, to comment on surprising news reports that found Glendale--a municipality of about 190,000 smack dab in the heart of crime-addled Los Angeles County--to be extraordinarily crime-free. To quote a Daily News headline: “Glendale Rated 2nd-Safest City in U.S.”

Could they believe that? Did that make sense?

Jo Anne and Laura answered in unison. It sounded like “yea-no-eh.”

*

Jo Anne: “There aren’t any bars on windows here.”

Laura: “Yes, there are.”

Jo Anne: “Well, not like there are in some areas.”

Window bars are a popular way to gauge the fear of crime. For the criminal behavior itself, the FBI crime index is the most common method--a tabulation of “Part 1 offenses” that include homicide, forcible rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, theft and arson.

By this measure, Glendale, contrary to its press clippings, is definitely not the nation’s second-safest city. It may not even be the nation’s second-safest Glendale. Chahe Keuroghelian, a spokesman for the Glendale police, says he was speechless when reporters first called him for comment on the ranking. “I thought, ‘Is this Glendale, Calif., they’re referring to?”

Glendale’s politicians and Chamber of Commerce types were naturally thrilled with the publicity windfall. But many people were puzzled. Keuroghelian points out that in the most recent annual rankings, Glendale was found to have the seventh-lowest crime rate among California cities with more than 100,000 residents, and the second-lowest countywide, after Santa Clarita. But now Glendale was being ranked No. 2 nationwide, after only . . . Huntington Beach? (Doesn’t Huntington Beach host an annual surfer riot?) And where was this stuff coming from, anyway?

It was coming from Lawrence, Kan.--from a publisher of guidebooks called Morgan Quitno Press. The work of Morgan Quitno, Keuroghelian suggests, should serve as a reminder that there are many ways that data can be analyzed, manipulated and massaged. The rankings may be valid as far as they go, but that isn’t very far at all.

The value of such guidebooks is dubious. For one thing, the “City Crime Rankings” guidebook lists only the 100 largest cities in America, so many safer and more dangerous municipalities were left out. There’s something strange about a book that suggests when you cross the border from Los Angeles--it ranked 64th--to Glendale you are leaving the mean streets and entering a haven. The rankings won’t tell you anything about how Glendale compares with such far-flung L.A. neighborhoods as Pacific Palisades, Granada Hills, Tarzana and San Pedro.

How safe is Glendale? Back in 1980 and ‘81, it ranked first among cities with more than 100,000 people, and its fall in the rankings essentially reflects the fact that a few more peaceable cities have seen their populations grow above that magic number.

But here’s another way of looking at it. In 1993, Glendale police handled nine willful homicides, 30 forcible rapes, 355 robberies, 227 felony assaults, 1,596 burglaries, 1,447 vehicle thefts, 4,051 reports of non-vehicular theft and 73 arson incidents.

All of which means Glendale, relatively speaking, is a pretty safe town.

*

When Jo Anne and Laura went to Marshall High, the Glendale cops had a reputation for being strict. Anybody speeding down Brand Boulevard would get nailed, they said. Glendale cops didn’t issue warnings.

Growing up in L.A. you learn urban survival skills, they say. You become aware of your surroundings. Jo Anne and Laura each carry cellular phones. Laura has pepper spray; Jo Anne also carries a personal alarm that issues a siren if needed. They know when to twist their rings around to hide the gemstones. Laura’s had weirdos try to follow her home from work. Now she drives straight to a police station. For home protection, she’s got a gun and a big dog.

Jo Anne, without a gun or a dog, says Glendale feels so safe that she isn’t afraid to take a stroll at night. Of course, she adds, she wouldn’t go out alone. Walking alone, Jo Anne says, is just asking for trouble.