rialtonow

Photo credit SB Sun
George Molina-flores, 26, of Rialto, was arrested for suspicion of attempted kidnapping at Flores Park Tuesday.

Residents of Flores Park and Parents of Dollahan Elementry have been concerned with the illegal and questionable activities taking place outside the school and park that are only seperated by a single 5 foot chain link fence.

Parents of Dollahan Elementary spoke at recent school meetings with Rialto Unified School District Security officers and School Safety Chief Leary (meetings Rialto Police were absent) about creepy guys harassing moms walking in the park, homeless people sleeping and drinking in the park as well as people being witnessed preforming sexual acts in the park in broad daylight.

Residents say that more drugs and sex go on in the park restrooms than anything else. At a recent Safe Routes to School meeting at Dollahan (meetings Rialto Police were absent) parents marked multiple problem houses on maps where drugs are sold, kids are used as drug mules, gang related and former felons sit in open garages and drink all day and a group home full of mentally disturbed right across the street of a park and elementry school are located all around the school. One attempt to create walking groups to school failed because of a concern that pedophiles were targeting the walking group.

Local resident Marie said “that she has lived in the community for over 10 years and there was a time that we felt like Rialto PD cared about our safety. Now they have removed any officers that wanted to help us keep this neighborhood clean what is worse is a council member and officers still have family living here and we get no help”. Marie is right there were dark times where Lt’s like Burkholder, Crispin and Karol all worked very hard to make sure that good people were taken care of and evil did not prevail. These leaders with a community mindset brought in aggressive officers and staff that made things much safer in the Flores Park Community. Then people like former Captain Joe Cirilo that was witnessed multiple times yell at and threatening residents that were looking for help for their community.

Flores Park Neighborhood Watch now has a new Area Commander who acts a lot like former Area Commander Joe Cirilo. Rialto Police Lt. Paul Stella is the current Area Commander and the leadership among the Neighborhood Watch group have expressed a lack of confidence in his ability to lead the Northern portion of Rialto. Neighborhood Watch leadership asked Lt Stella last summer at a promotion ceremony for officers if they could sit down with him and he barked “why would I meet with you?” When they said we would like to give you a insider look into our community and the ongoing issues. Lt Stella said “I know all about your community and your group I don’t need your help.”

The recent Kidnap attempt at Flores Park after school dismissed yesterday it leaves one to ask does he really know what is going on in the community if these concerns preceded the incident the other day? School Safety officers walk the park when they are on campus and identify people not in the park for valid reasons and multiple people have been removed from the park but not by Rialto Police but by School Safety officers according to sources. Now that this incident has happened Rialto Police will have additional patrols after school and cameras have been looked at and any that are not working have been marked to be fixed according to Sgt Nelson form Rialto PD.

Sgt Nelson said that its sad that sometimes it takes incidents like these to move police into action even though it is the desire and goal to place resources to keep them from ever happening. Sgt Nelson also said that now its vital to remain vigilant in alerting the police to any suspicious persons.