Community memorials that were vandalized in San Pedro recently sat on “sacred ground,” one waterfront union member said.
Few crimes of vandalism have hit the close-knit waterfront community as hard as the destruction of memorials honoring the town’s early fishermen, the Merchant Mariners and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union workers.
But work is now pushing forward to right the wrong.
“We’re working with the community, we’re doing everything we can,” said Port of Los Angeles spokesperson Phillip Sanfield. That includes, he said, encouraging the groups that installed and sponsored the monuments to apply for port community grants to help fund the process.
The memorials are on what is now Port of L.A. property — a linear open space along Harbor Boulevard from the Vincent Thomas Bridge to the Los Angeles Maritime Museum. But the installations were individually sponsored and funded by different groups in town over the past few years and are not the property of the port.
Augie Bezmalinovich, the port’s community affairs advocate, has taken the lead for the port in contacting community groups that originally sponsored the tributes decades ago.
Meanwhile, fences have come down from the around the damaged monuments and the legal process continues following the arrest of three suspects. The port also is working with police to beef up security around the area.
The series of thefts that began late in 2023 and continued into early 2024 were carried out by what police believe were metal thieves who pried off bronze-copper plaques that could be melted down for cash. Three arrests have been made.
Similar thefts during that same time period plagued local cemeteries where grave markers were stolen; downtown Los Angeles where copper wiring from streetlights were removed; and thefts in South Bay beach cities, including Veterans Park in Redondo Beach and the plaque marking Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach.
Paying tribute to San Pedro’s…
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