Westgate shooting highlights security measures

A recent shooting at a bitty busy West Valley Entertainment District on the evening of 4th of July highlighting the importance of robust security on that huge property. Fox 10's Nicole Christine joins us after touring Westgate Entertainment District with the security detail there in a story you'll only see on Fox 10. Yeah they gave us some great access to kind of get behind the scenes. Police say a 15-year-old opened fire around 9 p.m. on the 4th of July wounding five other kids including his eight-year-old sister. He was detained on scene and now faces several charges but we got that behind the scenes look at how the response on scene was able to happen so quickly and effectively. The response was immediate it really was and it saves lives. Leaders with Westgate Entertainment District and the Glendale Police Department say incidents like the 4th of July shooting on property are immediately followed by conversations about safety and security. We're exchanging notes hey what can we do better what could what could we improve upon? I have ascertained that there's no longer threats or you know everything is contained. I go to at that time the sergeant of entertainment squad I said what could we have done better and we those are the tough questions that no you know you want to look inward before you start implementing things. And many security elements have been implemented in Westgate including hiring private security and off-duty officers and the creation of the Glendale Police Department's entertainment squad in late 2023. Not only good for the city but it's also good for business and the patrons that come here. Glendale police officer Alfonso Trevino has been part of the entertainment squad for a couple years now and says calls for service in the district are down from when he started in the role. We used to get fights all the time just a lot of juveniles that were coming also fight with each other but now it's like most of the time that we come out here it's kind of slowed down. Data supports his point from 2024 to 2025 there was a decrease between 10 and 19 percent for crimes like aggravated assaults criminal damage and burglaries. Access to PD's real-time crime center also a huge help during incidents like the recent shooting. It's very common for witnesses to have different accounts different descriptions of people but with an officer watching from real-time crime center they're able to kind of help us sort out through all that what ends up happening is they can direct the officers on the ground to stop people interview people. There's also like new applications that let us listen to the calls as well so we're kind of our response times are a lot quicker and we kind of get eyes on the suspect really fast so sometimes eyes in the sky are very helpful. The partnership on full display during the 4th of July shooting. Those officers were able to respond they were able to render aid they were able to secure the scene detain people that were involved and all that before the initial 9-1-1 calls from from other patrons were even processed through our dispatch center and dispatched out to officers. And Pinon and Commander Hines say the plan is to continue adding officers and other security measures as the area continues to grow in the future with the eventual addition of the Vi resort and other commercial properties. Live in studio Nicole Christine Fox 10 News.