Helicopters were circling over Los Angeles’s Ernest E. Debs Regional Park on Oct. 28 as I left work for the day. Standing next to my car in the Audubon Center at Debs Park parking lot, I quickly reached for my phone to figure out what was happening. Not twenty minutes beforehand, I had sent a small group of hikers up a trail.

I learned that, three hours earlier, two young women had been found murdered on the southern edge of the park about half a mile away from the Center. It was stunning, such a thing, in broad daylight.

Our team at the Audubon Center at Debs Park has dealt with the issues that come with working in city parks: homeless encampments, occasional break-ins, graffiti, copper theft. We’ve learned now to address these kinds of things.

But this kind of violence is something entirely different. The murder of these girls has rocked this community. While I continue to see people enjoying the park, I am worried by the comments I see below online news articles, on message boards – in the rumors that make their way through our doors – that people are staying away from the park because they don’t feel it is safe.

Not only do we need to bring whoever did this horrible crime to justice, but we also need to make violence prevention and response a priority for our city parks system. I don’t doubt for a minute that the Los Angeles Police Department and the Department of Recreation and Parks are doing the most they can with the resources they have. And I have met many of their dedicated officers and rangers who go above and beyond.

But city leaders can improve the promise of safe parks, ensuring that the investments in our parks are supported with the security people need to enjoy them without fear for their safety.

Parks that become inaccessible because of violence may as well not exist at all.

Debs Park is the fourth largest park in the City of Los Angeles, and serves thousands upon thousands of children and families annually. It is a critically important resource for the communities of the Highland Park, Mt. Washington, Montecito Heights, and Monterey Hills.

The Audubon Center at Debs Park offers people living in the surrounding neighborhoods opportunities to enjoy the outdoors, get some exercise, and learn about nature.

It wasn’t always this way. One of our former employees grew up in Highland Park, but never visited the park because it was literally fenced off from her neighborhood. She had to climb over this fence to experience the joys of nature.

Audubon built its nature center in Debs Park because we feel strongly that people shouldn’t have to drive hundreds of miles to experience nature. It’s right here in our backyards, and it’s easily accessible for all to enjoy. Tens of thousands of children and families have come through the Center to enjoy the natural world at Debs Park.

It pains me to hear that people might be avoiding the park now, but it’s also understandable after such a horrific and unprecedented crime. Even before this happened, crime was on the minds of Angelenos with the Los Angeles Police Department reporting, after several years of improvements, a nearly 13 percent spike in major crime across the city from the previous year.

All the more reason for the city to focus on safety in these few outdoor places spaces that residents can enjoy. A park that no one visits because they don’t feel safe there isn’t a park at all. It might as well not exist.

Every time a person stays away from their neighborhood park because it doesn’t feel safe to them, it betrays the investment that taxpayers made not only the park but in the expected return in public health, education, and social capital.

Crime statistics are one thing, but perception is what is important here.

According to the 2011 Los Angeles County Health Survey, the most recent available, a little more than 84 percent of parents or other caregivers say their children have easy access to a safe park to play. In the northeast section of the city, where Debs Park is located, that number is slightly lower at 79 percent.

All of these numbers are higher than the 2007 numbers, when nearly 80 percent reported access to safe parks, and the percentage in the northeast section of the city was near 76 percent.

In both survey years, Latino and African Americans reported the lowest perception of safety, even though they are among the highest users of public parks. White residents expressed the greatest perception of park safety.

In the days following the murders at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park, the Los Angeles Police Department has maintained an increased presence, as have the city’s team of park rangers and public safety officers.

The city has grappled with the importance of perceptions of park safety in the past, and continues to place high importance on it. But we can always do more.

Building and maintaining parks clearly isn’t enough. We need to make the additional investments to ensure that Los Angeles children and families in every corner of the city perceive their neighborhood parks as safe places to enjoy all the benefits of nature and the outdoors.

Otherwise, what’s the point?