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NEIGHBORHOOD - What do Venice Beach, CA, Nice, France, Berlin and Magdeburg, Germany, and New Orleans, LA, have in common? They have all witnessed multiple deaths and injuries from a vehicle used to mow down pedestrians.
During the most recent attack, in New Orleans, at least 14 were killed and 35 were injured. In the random August 4, 2013 attack on the Venice Boardwalk, one young woman on her honeymoon was killed and 11 injured. The 38-year-old driver, Nathan Campbell, was supposedly angered by a drug deal gone bad, and decided to take it out on beachgoers.
Despite the fact that Venice, a district of the city of Los Angeles, has first-hand experience of the potential for harm from such an attack, it has failed for many years to make operational a series of steal traffic bollards at entry points to the Boardwalk. The bollards cost millions to install, but at six locations they remain retracted into the ground today, apparently due to the failure of city supervisors to get private sector contractors to get them to work.
This negligence invites anyone intent on committing a terrorist attack at the second most popular tourist attraction in California (after Disneyland) to steal or rent a vehicle and drive to Venice Beach to cause mayhem.
When the 2013 attack happened, I was in Burgos, Italy, completing a segment of the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrims’ trek. The area around the city’s cathedral is a pedestrian plaza, guarded by the same type of bollards installed on Venice’s Boardwalk. There are differences, though: Burgos’ bollards are raised at all times, except to allow taxis, and delivery, police, and fire vehicles access. There also is a public/private partnership to control lowering and raising the bollards. The 24-hour receptionists at the El Cid Hotel (which looms over the plaza and is next to one set of bollards) provide immediate response to drivers calling to gain access.
Hearing of the tragedy while in Burgos and seeing the solution in front of my hotel, I took photos and sent them to the city councilmember at the time. It was many years later that funds were finally allocated for bollards along the Boardwalk, and even later when they were finally installed. However, they have never been properly maintained and frequently many of them remain retracted in the ground.
The city has been warned of the dangers of the misfunctioning bollards, especially at Rose Avenue. One of my colleagues here in Venice has filmed numerous instances of cars coming west on Rose, and turning left onto the Boardwalk, apparently because some GPS systems direct them to use the pedestrian only walkway to reach hotels, restaurants, etc.
The thought occurs to me that the bollards were never meant to actually prevent a vehicle attack, that they were performative; i.e., meant to suggest that city learned from the 2013 attack and “did something” to prevent another attack, even though the barriers have never all been in the raised position at the same time.
Even though the city is basically bankrupt, in large measure from multi-million payouts on liability lawsuits, it is inviting both another vehicle attack and another liability lawsuit by failing to fix and use the bollards. While I am not an attorney, I believe not fixing the bollards, which were intended solely to prevent unauthorized vehicles from entering the Boardwalk, would clearly amount to negligence, making a prima facia case for a significant monetary award in the event of a repeat of 2013 attack here.
This is all to say, watch your back when you’re on the Boardwalk.
(Mark Ryavec serves as the president of the Venice Stakeholders Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing public safety and spearheading beautification projects. His commitment to safety stems from his father, who held a master’s degree in industrial safety and instilled in him the belief that preventing accidents is always easier and more cost-effective than recovering from them.)
