"Another quiet night patrolling South L.A."
Mr. Becerra at our downtown competitor went cruising with the South Bureau gang unit in Southeast division.
Saturday night, July 21, and it's been slow in South Los Angeles, scary slow. Two Los Angeles police officers stop a pair of young gang members for jaywalking, a good excuse to ask some questions.
When was the last shooting in the neighborhood? Officer Brandon Valdez asks. One of the gang members tells him it was probably "when my boy" was killed about a month ago, there by the church.
Valdez scribbles on a field interview card, which will be used to update the young man's gang profile.
The gang member, a lanky 20-year-old who goes by the name Mally, chews coolly on a toothpick. A large gilded crucifix dangles from his neck as he and a friend slouch, handcuffed, against a rusting gate on a street corner just west of the Nickerson Gardens projects.
Much like the night itself, the full story starts slowly and builds in dramatic intensity when violence breaks out. It's a great piece, well worth the time to read the whole thing. Rick Loomis compliments the words nicely with some great photos.
The most chilling moment to me didn't come during the actual shooting, however, but when a 14-year-old tries to confess to possessing a gun, so his big homie won't get arrested. I always want to believe in people's ability to turn themselves around, but if you're volunteering to pick up a case at an age where you should be still learning algebra, the future does not look bright.
And Mr. Becerra does a great job of showing exactly that.
Hans and I spent some time in the Southside while working on our series on Kristina Ripatti and
There are a lot of guns and there's a lot of anger down there. It's not surprising. When you're stacked into rundown apartments and your neighbors were shooting at you, it's not hard to see why you might be tempted to pick up a gun. Then a fight breaks out, another young kid who happens to be walking past gets killed and the cycle begins anew.
The thing that's most striking is the crowds that gather 'round. The story and its companion slideshow capture that really well. Cops wade into these disputes, sometimes with a kid bleeding his life away in the middle, and they're surrounded by dozens and dozens of onlookers.
Some are just curious, some have more malicious intents. Even on minor traffic stops, you can have 50 people clustered around, watching and offering commentary. And yet, when it comes time to ask who pulled the trigger, miraculously, no one saw nothin'. Some other mother's son goes to the morgue and everyone else goes on with their lives.