OCEAN BEACH (NEWS 8) – Ocean Beach residents on Tuesday packed a town hall meeting to sound off about a recent wave of crime in their neighborhood.
Residents said they are fed up after a string of arsons and vandalism in their neighborhood and they want police to take action.
“I have had to chase people off my roof and you say call? Why? It took me an hour for one of your people to answer my call,” said Fran del Santo.
The Ocean Beach community has come to rely on each other and have united to find and stop the arsonist torching cars, houses and debris – a total of eight cases since early December of last year.
Matt Bakers said his home was inches form a smoking alley mattress that was dumped over his fence. “This [was] absolutely no accident. This was arson.”
Members of the police and fire departments also attended Tuesday night’s town hall.
“[We] don’t think the information you may have is insignificant. It might be the biggest key we have and right now. We don’t have a solid suspect and looking for any information we can get,” said an officer.
Officers did not reveal details about the on-going investigation, but did advice residents to check crimemapping.com to accurately track crime.
“I walked away tonight feeling like I want to go and start my own neighborhood watch community. It’s really a fine line between taking it into your own hands because no one is above the law. We all live here and we want a safe community,” said Angela Bratrud.
The Ocean Beach Town Council is offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the serial arsonist.
Anyone with information is asked to call police. A GoFundMe page has also been set up to help with a reward.
The Ocean Beach clean up is hosted by Cleaner Streets Initiative this Saturday from 9 a.m., to noon. The meeting spot will be Pizza Port.