Thread: Latino gang makes blacks its target in Canoga Park

Latino gang makes blacks its target in Canoga Park
BY RICK COCA, Staff Writer
LA Daily News
Article Last Updated:08/06/2007 12:26:54 AM PDT

CANOGA PARK - Nickson Gilles came to Southern California last summer with dreams of carrying a football to stardom - first as a Pierce College running back, then maybe at USC or even the NFL.

Instead, he was carried out on a stretcher, his dream shattered by a shotgun blast that police say was leveled at him by an alleged member of the Canoga Park Alabama gang.

Gilles, an African-American from Florida, was shot in the neck, shoulder and left eye Sept. 3 after the Pierce Brahmas' first game of the season. It was just one of many attacks against blacks that landed Canoga Park Alabama on L.A.'s list of most dangerous gangs.

The Latino gang hasn't hidden the fact that it targets African-Americans in this community, which just two years ago earned the prestigious All-AmericaCity designation, largely due to its racial diversity.

The city's gang list and another that branded Gilles' accused assailant, Fernando Araujo, one of the city's most wanted gangsters offer little solace to Gilles, who has undergone three eye surgeries and hasn't played football since he was shot.

"That whole tragedy messed up my whole life right there," Gilles said in a phone interview from Florida.

Since July 2006 there have been 12 shootings targeting Canoga Park blacks. Following two recent attacks, police have stepped up warnings to African-Americans to be wary of Canoga Park Alabama.

Some blacks in the community, as well as educators working with African-American students, said they have felt the wrath of the gang's racist campaign of violence firsthand. But other blacks paint a more idyllic picture of Canoga Park, one that helped it become the first Los Angeles community to win the All-America honor in the award's 58-year history.

Once a predominately white community, today Canoga Park is about 50 percent Latino, 28 percent white, 15 percent Asian and 4 percent black, according to a 2005 American Community Survey listed in a California State University, Northridge, report.

Although police can't pinpoint why "CPA" has focused on blacks, one possibility is street culture emulating prison life, where black and Latino inmates have repeatedly clashed as they align themselves along racial lines.

"It could be a young guy trying to make his stripes (or) an order from somewhere else or random gang stuff," Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Tom Smart said. "Hopefully, it's a little flare-up and not a continuing trend, especially as the summer heats up."

With the last two attacks on blacks in and around Lanark Park separated by mere days and feet, police want African-Americans to be on alert for any trouble.

"I feel we have an obligation to let (black people) know that they could be targeted," Smart said. "I'd like to remind them to be mindful. It's random."

The most recent shooting occurred about 10:40 p.m. on June 13 when a 23-year-old African-American man drove into the parking lot of Lanark Park.

His attackers, believed to be several Latino males who remain at large, walked up to the car, asked where he was from - a common gang challenge - shouted racial slurs and shot him in the chest and shoulder.

Two days after that shooting, two 15-year-old black boys helping their uncle's girlfriend move out of a nearby apartment on Lanark Street were allegedly beaten in an unprovoked attack by several CPA members. At least one of the attackers shouted a racial epithet during the beating that was caught on an apartment surveillance camera, police said.

Gabriel Chavez, 18, Juan Carlos Sanchez, 20, and two Latino minors were arrested for allegedly taking part in the beating and face felony assault, hate crime and gang-crime enhancement charges.

Despite recent criticism of the city's anti-gang efforts in the Valley, which has seen about a 15 percent increase in gang crime so far this year, Smart said a gang injunction and suppression efforts have been effective - until recently.

After CPA, with about 400 active members, was put on the city's most-dangerous gangs list, the additional manpower from the department's violent crime task force and other agencies led to dozens of arrests and helped bring the gang's attacks under control for a while, Smart said.

"We did go five months without any reported shootings because of all the suppression and energy we've poured into there," he said. "We created what we thought was a safe community, and now it has reared its ugly head again."

Clashes near campus

Karen Cano is principal of the Coutin School, a small alternative education center in Canoga Park serving elementary through high school students with behavior or academic problems.

She said CPA has increasingly become a problem as mostly young, teenage members challenge her black students and others through the school's fence. Now, she doesn't let her black students walk outside campus.

"We're in a constant battle," Cano said. "We've had fights. ... They come up to the fence, flash their gang signs."

In April, Cano said there was a brawl between about six of her students and six members of the gang in a park where her students go for supervised physical education activity.

Cano said the CPA members said to the black students in the group: "`You n------ better watch yourselves,"' Cano said.

Following the brawl, Cano received a phone call from the father of an injured CPA member.

He repeated the gang's warning: "`You better watch your n------,"' Cano - a white woman who grew up in Canoga Park - said the man told her. "It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I just don't know who thinks that way anymore. I guess they do."

Cano said the situation is exacerbated by the fact that many of her students come from troubled backgrounds themselves.

In September, 17-year-old Dazohn Tony Roberts, a former Coutin student, was killed in a gunbattle with another gang member outside Birmingham High School in Van Nuys. Both Roberts and his assailants were black.

"I'm not saying my kids are totally innocent by any means," Cano said. "They wouldn't be here if they were."

She has tried to reason with the CPA members, even suggesting they attend her school, to no avail. She's hoping more attention recently promised by LAPD gang unit officers materializes into a police presence that she and her staff say has been grossly inadequate.

With some staff members describing the current environment as "a war zone," Cano said there is a sense of urgency to resolve the tension.

"This year, ... the level of violence escalated," Cano said, adding, "We're pretty much on high alert. We've been in this neighborhood for 30 years and we've never had any problems, but all of a sudden, it's like everything changed."

Eldred Betters, 27, who is black, has lived in Canoga Park for six years. He said he has had several run-ins with CPA members. Still, he's not willing to alter his life to avoid the gang.

"You can't just sit in the house and say, `There's some CP (members) targeting black people,"' said Betters, who grew up in the notorious Nickerson Gardens public housing projects in Watts.

CPA gang members "mean-mug" him, Betters said, referring to the hard stare gang members often use to intimidate people.

One time he almost came to blows with a carload of CPA members who jumped out and surrounded him.

"They said, `This is CPA, (you) ain't supposed to be around here.' I said, `Yeah? ... If you're going to beat me up, do it. I got to get to work."'

The gang members left him alone that time, and Betters said he holds no grudges.

"There's some youngsters, black kids, doing this, too," he said. "You can't put this all on the Mexicans."

Getting along

For Wilson Lewis, a 22-year-old African-American who lived in Canoga Park for eight years while attending Sutter Middle School and Taft High School, growing up in the culturally diverse neighborhood was a positive experience. He said he never had any problems with CPA.

"I've never been aware that they've been targeting (innocent) black kids, but they were just targeting gang members, black gang members that were Crips (a rival black gang)," said Lewis, who lives in Reseda.

The only time he was approached by CPA members is when he ran into those who didn't know him personally and thought he might be a rival.

"`Oh, we're not targeting you because you're black,"' he said they told him. "`We thought you were Crip."'

And because the gang is so large, Lewis said, he thinks those targeting blacks with no gang affiliation represent a small minority.

"As far as somebody shooting me just because I'm black?" he said. "I don't have that fear at all."

His former schoolmates come from all backgrounds and it's not uncommon for them to get together at parties, including some who grew up to become gang members.

"Black, white, Mexican, Middle-Eastern, and it's not like we're all divided, we're all together at the party, too," Lewis said.

It is that spirit of togetherness that helped Canoga Park earn its All-America city honor.

Vicki Gilkey, an African-American and project manager in the city's Canoga Park Community Redevelopment Agency office, was part of the team that won over the judges, wearing a traditional West African dress during the presentation.

The Culver City resident, who has worked in the San Fernando Valley for eight years, often works until the wee hours of the morning at the agency's Wyandotte Street office, but she has never had a problem with CPA members.

In fact, she has only had positive experiences with Canoga Park's growing Latino community, a group that reminds her of blacks during the national pride movement of the 1970s.

"I feel a kinship because I understand (this) embracing of culture," she said.

Pain and grief

Brown-on-black violence in Canoga Park is an obvious concern, but it is rarer than intra-race shootings. Lela Jones knows this firsthand.

Her son, Torrey, 23, an African-American, was shot to death outside her Canoga Park apartment complex in 2003 by a young black man who police say was probably a gang member.

His death is a reminder that the majority of L.A's gang-related homicides are black-on-black and brown-on-brown assaults.

To deal with her tragedy, Jones, 44, of Chatsworth, is helping organize the second annual Love One Another Youth and Young Adult Summit, which hopes to reach out to troubled youth, including gang members, as well as people who have lost loved ones to violence.

She said gang members are not only ruining their lives and the people they kill, but those who are left to mourn and deal with lives cut short by violence.

"They hurt the mothers. They hurt the fathers. They hurt the children. They destroy families," Jones said. "It's a pain that never goes away. It's always there."

Gilles, the former Pierce football player, is trying to overcome the pain he endured over the color of his skin.

On most days, he gets himself to the gym in the morning and again in the afternoon, followed by running drills as he readies himself for the upcoming football season. He's hoping to join another community college program, but insists it will be in the South.

Even though that part of the country has a vicious history of violence against blacks, Gilles feels safer there than in Southern California.

"I'm from the South, you feel me?" Gilles said. "That whole West Coast environment is different."


http://www.dailynews.com/ci_6552619?source=most_viewed

Added to Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=N ... =0&thold=0

where is the NAACP ... where is the rainbow coalition.... where is the outrage of the ACLU .... ok... where is the law enforcement... the federal government, the boarder patrol... matter of fact where the hell is Presidente Bush... let him walk those streets ......

these people although I am sure there are some good ones (I just dont know any) where is the outrage by the latino community

WHERE IN THE HELL IS ICE

Where is the Governer

hmmm..... so all we have to protect us is Chertoff and I do believe he kind of reminds me of Barney on Mayberry RFD... except Chertoff is Cockeyed and has no idea of what the law is

Citizens need to activate our own protective measures because this government is all for one (as far as collecting your taxes) and every man woman and child for themselves when it comes to protection..... hopefully it will be quick and painless

Stand up America ... get off of your knee's ... get mad

Just more (MOD EDIT) garbage at work.

Must be another one of La Raza's support groups.

Originally Posted by avenger

Must be another one of La Raza's support groups.

It seems that if anyone gets in the way of these illegals will be targeted!!! We can see there true agenda and its not to conform to American culture and live happily ever after!!! Its to flip the nation upside down and rape her for all she's worth and when weakened invade and occupy!!!

I have added the following note to this article on the homepage

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ALIPAC NOTE: This article tries hard to conceal and spin the real situation in Southern California. Most of these Latino gangs are made up of illegal aliens and these gangs are working with the cartels to import over 90% of America's illegal aliens, cocaine, speed, and heroin. There are ethnic cleansing zones in Lost Angeles where blacks cannot enter without fear of assassination. The brown on black gang violence has long since escalated to direct racial attacks regardless of gang affiliation. The attacks are in the prisons, in the schools, and on the streets. There is a prevalent wave of racism against black and European Americans in the ranks of the illegal aliens, especially in their gangs, and this racism and violence has very deadly consequences for Americans.

How many more have to be killed before our government wakes up. We need a President who isn't afraid to take the podium and denounce this kind of activity in our country. I think in our letters to our elected officials, we need to keep hammering at them at about the crime in this country caused by illegal aliens. We can't count on the media to report this stuff.

Chertoff is a pawn of the President - or worse. He is doing less than nothing. He is doing enough to pretend he is doing something -

When will the black people wake up. Why is REv. Sharpton working for the illegals - and Rev. Jesse embracing them?

When they talk of diversity, they are talking about forced diversity - it will always create hatred and resentment.