Thread: CA - Target gangs, Harbor Gateway crowd urges

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/article ... wAll=y&c=y

Today is Friday, December 29, 2006
Originally published Friday, December 29, 2006
Updated Friday, December 29, 2006
Target gangs, Harbor Gateway crowd urges
Residents at a town hall meeting plead with City Attorney's Office for an injunction in wake of teen's killing in violence tied to race.
By Larry Altman
Daily Breeze

Several residents of a Harbor Gateway neighborhood rocked by the killing of a 14-year-old girl demanded a gang injunction and more vigilant policing Thursday at a town hall meeting to address racially motivated violence that has plagued the area for years.

Hearing of the success of such court orders in other parts of the city, residents implored officials with the City Attorney's Office and Los Angeles Police Department to pursue an injunction to limit the activities of gangs and hopefully combat the racial violence and intimidation plaguing the Los Angeles city strip area north of Torrance Boulevard.

"I want to know when can we expect placement of a gang injunction," said Denise Hill, one of about 150 residents attending the meeting at Bethel Baptist Church. "How fast can we get one? This is ridiculous."

The community meeting, called by the Harbor Gateway South Neighborhood Council, brought residents, police, prosecutors, human relations commission officials, gang interventionists and City Councilwoman Janice Hahn together to discuss race, gangs and crime.

The meeting was held in response to the Dec. 15 fatal shooting of Stephen M. White Middle School student Cheryl Green, the latest victim in an escalating, racially charged war among gangs in Harbor Gateway between Normandie and Western Avenues north of Torrance Boulevard.

Cheryl, a black girl talking with friends on the corner of 206th Street at Harvard Boulevard, was standing on an unofficial boundary that separates blacks on the south of 206th Street from Latinos on the north when a gunman walked up and opened fire.

Cheryl died. Three friends were wounded.

A Latino member of a gang that bases itself on 204th Street has been charged in the slaying, and more arrests are expected, police said.

"This kind of tragic shooting of Cheryl is not acceptable. It should not be tolerated and it should break the heart of every one of us," Hahn told the residents. "I am upset and I'm angry and I feel a little bit guilty that this has been allowed to continue in this neighborhood until we lost a young girl."

With about a dozen Los Angeles police officers in attendance, Hahn said the department should increase patrols in the Harbor Gateway and called on City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo to seek a gang injunction.

Gang injunctions, which prevent gang members from gathering or drinking in public and impose strict penalties on them for even minor violations, are in effect in Harbor City, Wilmington and other communities.

"This matter will be getting the utmost attention," said Deputy City Attorney Bernie Brown, who supervises the San Pedro office.


Some officials said the injunction process, which can take months or even years to move through the civil court system, is already under way.

Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Charlie Beck, who oversees the department's South Bureau, pledged to assign more officers to the area, and said some already are there.

During the meeting, residents called for uniting the community of Latinos and blacks, teaching better race relations in schools and creating anti-gang programs.

Linda Mayner, a playground supervisor at 186th Street School, said in an interview that black students as young as 7 and 8 years old tell her they stay after school to play because they fear playing outside their Harbor Gateway homes.

"It breaks my heart," Mayner said.

The Rev. Eric Lee of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles said the community needs to pray to fight racism.

"You can't lock up racism," Lee said. "We have to deal with the question of why does this hatred continue to exist among people who live in the same community."

The racial tensions began in the late 1990s when blacks forced to leave a nearby housing development that was shut down and demolished began moving into low-income housing in the Harbor Gateway neighborhood primarily comprised of Latinos residents.

An 11-year-old black boy was killed in 1996, prompting an earlier call to curtail the racial problems. Although the killings and shootings subsided under a police crackdown, residents of both races have become victims of gun violence over the years.

Although some Latinos attended the meeting, most residents in the church chapel appeared to be white residents who have lived in the community for decades and black residents who are concerned about the shooting.

Just three Latinos asked for a Spanish translator.

Cameron Bonner, a black Los Angeles resident, said not enough Latinos participated, and that nothing would change "unless you see the faces of the people who squeezed the trigger" at such a meeting.


Looking out over people in the hall, he said, "These are not the people who are harming the kids."

Charlene Lovett, who buried her daughter Cheryl on Wednesday, said she hoped the forum would help the community "make a complete change."

"I hope that we will be able to live in this community without the children fearing and their parents fearing for their children," she said.

Police cannot do it all there are simply not enough of them, it is time for neighborhoods to take back their what they allowed the gangs to take from them, the freedom to be able to go anywhere without being shot down for that freedom. This is America, damit, the land of the free, not the land of the gangs, it is time to remove these people from our neighborhoods once and for all. If the cops can't do it the people are going to have to, in whatever way way it takes. It is absurd for Americans to have to live in fear, from retaliation from the gangs much as the people in Iraq are having to live, why has our government allowed these gangs to develop and thrive as they have, they should be treated as home grown terrorist as they are, get them off our streets, I don't care if they are 9 yrs old if they belong to a gang they must pay the price, I say drop these little turkeys on some deserted island somewhere, drop food from an airplane to them, and let them kill each other!

This is not the first time blacks have been targeted in this area of Los Angeles. This is the Los Angeles corridor which links the City of Los Angeles with the port. It is actually named as part of the city of Torrance. Now whites have the means to leave an area when it becomes undesirable. Blacks were mostly restricted to living east of Western Avenue which is where this community starts. Early 80's roll around and all these latinos start coming in and all the whites that just couldnt take it anymore, between the blacks and now the surge in latinos, either moved west or left to the far east which is now called Orange County. You know from the show the OC. Yes the OC is comprised mostly of white refugees from Los Angeles. White flight is the reason Orange County is so huge and frankly so nice. Yes there is a lot of Asians in OC but I could care less if my neighbor says hi to me or not.
My point being, this area is where poor uneducated people live and they are just undesirable to be around. They have no means to better themselves and it will not change. They will continue to knock each other off and that is that. All they have money for is SUVs and 20" rims. Education and getting the hell out of the Harbor Gateway is not important to these simpletons.