Thursday's column
The man’s desperate wail sent a chill down my spine.
He was wearing a blue shirt and faded jeans. The man appeared to be in his 30s. He was Asian. His dark hair combed across his forehead.
Just moments earlier, I had watched the man in the blue shirt drive a nice burnished brown Lexus up to the yellow crime scene tape stretched across Cameron Avenue in unincorporated West Covina. He looked confused and briefly spoke to a deputy.
In an instant, the man hopped out of his car. He ducked under the police line and ran toward a crowd of cops and civilians gathered on the gated driveway of a home in the 19700 block.
A big guy grabbed him. Some others wearing green sheriff’s Windbreakers huddled around. Someone said something to the man. Some women who had been in front of the house came over. They looked dazed.
“Is my wife OK?” he asked. “Did you find the guy?”
The response was quiet, unintelligible from where I stood 30 yards away.
Then came the cry. I watched his legs buckle. Momentarily he collapsed.
Piercing my ears; horrifying, riveting, compelling, and repelling me — all at the same time.
“No! No! No! She just called me!” he shouted. “You lie to me!”
The deputies with the green Windbreakers hugged the man. They patted his back. Someone helped him from the sidewalk to a patrol car. He sat in back with one of the women. The car took off.
All this happened about two hours ago. When you read this you will probably know more about the man than I do right now.
Homicide Lt. Dan Rosenberg said that deputies were originally dispatched to the home on the heels of a 9-1-1 call about a burglary in process.
The woman was shot to death while she was on the phone with a dispatcher, according to a spokesman with the Sheriff’s Headquarters Bureau.
About the same time, West Covina police took a phone call from a person who “saw some people running down the street,” West Covina police Lt. Dan Brooks said. “It was a call of suspicious activity,” Brooks added. “We quickly figured out it could be connected to the other incident.”
South Hills High and Mesa Elementary schools were both placed on lockdown, Brooks said.
A second woman who was there when the blue-shirted man arrived spoke to him briefly before he left. She walked away from the house and sat on a bus bench near the intersection of Cameron and Grand avenues. I heard her speaking Chinese to another man who had arrived on scene.
So I walked over and asked in my limited Mandarin if she wanted to talk about what had happened.
“Bu Yao,” she said.
I knew that meant no, and realized the poor man in the blue shirt had already said everything that could be said.
(photo by SGVN staffer Watchara Phomicinda)
Comments
Three miles from my house in a very upscale neighborhood. It really doesn't matter, does it? Monrovia, Compton, Long Beach, L.A. it just keeps on spreading & the state of our econony doesn't help. Never owned a weapon never felt a need to go that far for protection; now I wonder....
Posted by: Berta | March 19, 2008 9:12 PM
Nicely done, Frank. the first time I saw that scene playout was also in West Covina, the Spring of '94. A father learning his child had drowned. Gives me chills even now.
This is the stuff of good journalism (hellooooo, Mr. Singleton!).
Posted by: Robert C. J. Parry | March 19, 2008 9:34 PM
The cry of losing a loved one is something nobody can ever forget. Nicely done article Mr Girardot.
Berta, it is odd you bring up gun ownership. It is something that has crossed my mind a couple of times recently. I've been around guns since a very early age and got my first one, not a "BB" either, but the real deal in kindergarten. I don't own one now as I don't hunt, I don't do target practice and certainly with kids I would have to take some significant steps to secure it.
Securing a gun from them, well I just don't know what good it would do me as it would take time to get it if someone broke in so it would be of little use. At best its one more goody in the booty, at worst its been taken and used against me.
Posted by: frazgo | March 20, 2008 6:27 AM
I came back late last night from Vegas. It was nice the last four days because I concentrated on having a good time while there and didn't hear any news or very little.
When I watched the news at home last night I see this heart breaking story along with the wrong way driver on the 118 that crashed into a big rig, the story of a bunch of assholes ripping people off for money in the loan industry and the conviction of James Dixon in the killing of Christina Burmeister. This is the norm here every fucking night people! This is now what we can expect! How fucking sad is that?
The saddest part of it all is this is something we are all getting used to. Shed your tears, get angry and post about it here as people have for months on the Monrovia shootings but nothing is going to fucking change...not anything!
The idiots in this state are going to keep re-electing the same weak ass liberal politicians who have done their best to turn the "Golden State" into a sewer and just hope they don't miss American Idol or at least remember to TIVO it.
In Vegas I talked to a card dealer from Turkey. I remembered seeing an on-line video where two brothers and a father executed the two men who raped and killed their respective sister/daughter...in public.
I asked him if that was the norm and he said that in some areas yeah. I don't quite feel that extreme yet but maybe liberal Miss H. or some gang apologist like usagain or just some random person could explain to me the down side of that. I simply don't see it.
In the future can we really expect much different? More stories will be cranked out even worse than this killing, liberals and such will still view burglary as a non-violent offense and treat the scum like minor offenders, people will come out of prison and one day later cap someone which happened what just last week, and in the mean time as Robert pointed out we'll do all we can to weaken our most elite troops in the name of political correctness.
Oh yeah, and we'll probably be more like 30 billion in the whole pandering to everyone we can except the lawful and the working class.
Sorry for the language but coming back to reality just pisses me off sometimes.
Local Boy
Posted by: Local Boy | March 20, 2008 11:18 AM
High Noon in West Covina.
A woman in a private residence in West Covina was SHOT TO DEATH yesterday at 12:15 PM (15 minutes past noon) it was daylight and in a nice area of the city. It happened while she was dialing 911. The home was an upscale fenced and gated residence. Now someone should ask the hard questions!
1. If she had a gun, and maintained in accordance with the laws of the State of California could she have defended her self.
NO, She would have to unlocked the gun, and the located the ammunition, and loaded the gun………longer that it takes to call 911.
The people we elected have a GREEN ZONE mentality, and they live in the GREEN ZONE, but even an upscale residence in West Covina California is not in the GREEN ZONE.
Our legislator have made it impossible for a citizen to defend themselves from being murdered in the own home. They have made you a criminal if you have your gun loaded and ready to defend yourself. Now only outlaws have guns, and we are all rabbits.
Look at the facts, in the States where people may have guns and carry them GUN RELATED VIOLENT CRIME had gone down. In the States where guns are outlawed GUN RELATED VIOLENT CRIME has gone UP. Washington DC has the toughest gun laws in the US, and the law in being changeling in the Supreme Court of the US NOW. The GUN VIOLENT CRIME in Washington DC has gone up since they passed the law outlawing handguns more that 15 years ago.
In Florida, where you can carry a gun, the GUN VIOLENT CRIME has gone down.
So now we have a real incident of a KILLING that could have been prevented with a GUN, and not a phone.
FACT ---- she was SHOT while on the phone with the 911 operator, and the dispatcher heard the sound of the shots.
The police arrived but did not find the killers, and the searched for hours, with people, cars and helicopters well past 6 PM. The bad guys got away, and may never be found.
You can bet the gun they used is not registered, and was not purchased legally, and it was not maintained legally. The California Gun law did not prevent this crime, they enabled it.
No I don’t advocate everyone carrying a loaded gun, like Arizona, but if a person is capable of and trained to use a firearm, they should not be prohibited from being able to defend them self with it.
The laws need to enable self defense and not enable murder.
The criminals know that we can’t defend our selves and the incident of yesterday will become an all too common occurrence if we don’t get the message to our legislators. They have gone too far, and have put all of us not in the GREEN ZONE in jeopardy.
The economy is in trouble, and crime increased when that happens.
We can’t have the means to protect ourselves that is adequate in the presence of a gun.
The police can’t get to you in time if you call 911, they can only listen to the shots being fired.
An old saying that comes to mind:
When rabbits shoot back there will be fewer rabbit hunters.
Write your legislator, and tell them we want the ability to have a gun and be able to protest ourselves.
Or you can wait until your neighborhood is the subject of a 6 hours search, and learn that the killers may have run thru your back yard, and then gotten away. Not easy to sleep that night, or perhaps the next as well.
Posted by: George McLachlan | March 20, 2008 3:40 PM