The man charged with three Hollywood Hills home invasions is a convicted kidnapper and arsonist who is looking at a possible life sentence under California’s three-strikes law.

Bruce McKinney, 42, has served prison time on three other convictions and was most recently released on parole April 23 after serving almost 11 years of a 12-year prison sentence for arson.

Prosecutors have also confirmed that McKinney remains a suspect in several robberies.

Meanwhile, the thought of a convicted arsonist on a crime spree in the fire-sensitive Hollywood Hills was cause for consternation among some residents.

“It’s a big concern,” said Hollywood Hills resident Walter Blackman. “That’s one of the most important priorities in the community. And we have to be vigilant.”

Last week McKinney was charged with five counts of first-degree robbery, one count of kidnapping and one count of kidnapping to commit another crime, according to the District Attorney’s Office.  He was also charged with one count of sexual battery by restraint and three counts of first-degree residential burglary.

Authorities said those charges would represent a “third strike” under California’s mandatory minimum sentencing law, possibly triggering a sentence of 25 years to life.

In addition to the arson conviction, McKinney spent time in state prison for two other crimes. Beginning in 1982, he spent 25 months of his three-year sentence for receiving stolen property before being paroled. In 1984, he began a nine-year sentence for kidnapping, leaving on parole in June, 1992.

McKinney was arrested early this month and accused by police of committing three home invasions, the most recent one happening on May 30 at around 11 p.m. on Wilton Avenue north of Franklin, in which the suspect threatened a female resident with a knife and took property, police said.

In two other home invasions, McKinney allegedly forced victims to hand over money and jewelry and then to drive him to a similar location in South Los Angeles.

Copyright © 2003  The Los Angles Independent.  All rights reserved.  

Hollywood Hills Residents Fight Back
By KEVIN BUTLER, The Independent Staff - Jun 12, 2003

Neighborhood Watch volunteers begin posting signs in Beachwood Canyon.

Angry Hollywood Hills residents are organizing into community groups to fight a recent crime spree in their neighborhoods.

Neighborhood watches are sprouting, and residents are alerting one another, sending updated police information via flyers, meetings or a central web site.

All in response to a crime wave that has shaken residents who moved to the Hollywood Hills in part because they felt it was safer than other parts of the city.

"I think that people are shocked," said Fran Reichenbach, president of the Beachwood Canyon Neighborhood Association.

"But at the same time, I’m not seeing the level of hysteria that I would have expected. Instead I see people wanting to have the discussion, ‘What can we do?’"

In just over two months, several suspects have committed nine street robberies and three home invasions, rocking an area that traditionally has seen comparatively little crime.

Among those to recently organize is the neighborhood watch group formed by Hollywood Hills resident Ann Debello and her fellow apartment dwellers, who were getting underway when the crime spree hit.

"We were trying to get [a neighborhood watch group] organized," she said. "Because of the crime spree, we worked on it a lot quicker."

Meanwhile, Reichenbach’s web site, www.beachwoodcanyon.org, has become a kind of clearinghouse for police information. The four-year-old site, which posts crime alerts and updates, also has an online forum in which visitors can discuss questions and concerns.

She says that mobilizing the community has become easier since the Digital Age arrived.
"It’s great," she said. "It’ll never replace phone calls, and we’re doing those. It will never replace … ‘Guess what happened on your street last night.’ But it is awesome."

The neighborhood association’s meeting two weeks ago drew 130 residents, she said, including 78 newcomers. She walked out with dozens of new email addresses.

Reichenbach is one of the community leaders who gets email updates from Capt. Michael Downing, commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Division. The leaders then spread the information down the chain to other residents.

"[The Internet] has the potential to be a way that we can answer hysteria, or … people jumping to the wrong conclusions or whatever," she says. "It’s a way we can handle it in public without having to wait for a meeting to do that."

But those kinds of community link-ups aren’t confined to the digital world. Susan Bitman, who lives on Graciosa Drive, and her neighbors are trying to revive their dormant neighborhood watch the old-fashioned way. Talking to each other. Organizing a meeting with the police’s senior lead officer. All while remaining calm.

"I don’t think there’s great fear," says Bitman, who lives near Hollyridge Drive, where a robbery and home invasion occurred. "I think there’s concern. There’s great concern and everyone’s just trying to be really conscious of who’s around and any unusual activity."

Others say that the string of frightening crimes has seriously affected people’s daily routines.
"I’m not seeing as many of our long-term older residents out in the street, as much as they used to be," said Hills resident Peter Ellis. "People are afraid. People are staying inside and they are being much more cautious."

And on the look out, ready to call the police on their cell phones if they see someone suspicious while running errands, taking jogs and walking dogs.

George Abrahams says he spotted someone walking near the intersection of Beachwood and Ledgewood drives who matched a description he later heard from police – of an African-American transient who breaks into homes and typically walks out carrying one item.

The man he spotted, who was dressed like a transient, carried something under his hand that looked like a VCR wrapped in a white plastic bag, he said.

Recalling seeing the transient-looking man, Abraham says, "there was some trepidation in reporting the (suspicious person), because I wanted to give the person the benefit of the doubt.

"I think profiling people based on race is not an attractive personal trait, so I didn’t want to exhibit a bad trait."

The Hollywood Hills is an area that is mostly white. Reichenbach, who says an arrested suspect’s attorney called her to accuse the community of racial profiling, says the neighbors’ approach "is not racially motivated at all. We have a lot of black families up here.

"The African-American neigh- bors up here are very sensitive to what’s going on," she added. "And it’s just so unfortunate that we are in this situation where we are looking for an African-American suspect. It’s just a fact."

As the police develop new leads and issue new descriptions and sketches, neighbors are continuing to coordinate and spread the information, advising one another to keep ears and eyes open. - Staff Photo by Gary McCarthy

Copyright © 2003  The Los Angles Independent.  All rights reserved.