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For more solutions on community violence visit Dailybulletin.com
For more solutions on community violence visit Dailybulletin.com
He was a popular student, a proud member of the Garey High School football team.
Now Raymond Garcia is one more victim.
The votive candles flicker at the intersection where the 16-year-old was shot early Sunday. His teammates have gethered to mourn.
For those keeping count, Raymond was Pomona victim number 12 since the day 3-year-old Ethan Esparza and an Inland man were killed last November.
His brother Arthur said it best:
"It didn't seem right trying to pick out a casket for Raymond. It seems like we should have been picking a car to buy him instead."
Like Ethan and the others, Raymond's killer has yet to be caught.
Until someone has enough courage or shame to step forward and talk, the list will just get longer.
That's the title of an e-mail I received, and the sad reason why we have the Solutions blog.
"I am related to Rolland Holloway, the latest victim of the senseless crime that is plaguing our streets," they write.
"I would first like to say that Roland was no GANG MEMBER!!. However he was a father of three children that are now left without a father.
"When they ask me why did this happen to daddy? I sit there dumb founded without being able to offer a response. Who will they call daddy now?"
Rolland Holloway was shot to death early last Saturday in the alley behind his Pomona aprtment. He was 31.
They also shot his girlfriend, Pamela Campbell. She died later at a hospital.
Rolland and Pamela are victims number six and seven since 3-year-old Ethan Esparza was gunned down outside his grandparents' home last Nov. 19.
Six people shot to death. One stabbed.
One more family left to wonder why a good man had to die.
"These are questions I would like to ask those that are responsible ... " Rolland's family wrote.
His family people need to stand up to evil.
"People must stand up for our streets and families against these people ..."
Someone out there knows who "these people" are.
It's past time for you to stand up.
Holloway was a good family man, friends said. He loved his dhlidren.
Cool people, another remembered.
It's now four months since someone fired a gun into a crowd outside a home on East Columbia Avenue, killing Ethan Esparza just hours before his 4th birthday.
Police continue to look for Ethan's killer, and Chief Joe Romero and his detectives are determined to solve the case no matter how long it may take.
But community leaders are also looking ahead, working for change that will prevent another Ethan.
Romero and Pomona Unified Superintendent Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana make it clear that neither Ethan nor California Highway Patrol Officer Thomas Steiner, shot by a 16-year-old gang wanna-be in 2004, will be forgotten.
Pomona's Youth and Family Master Plan is the foundation of change. It is the promise of school and family programs that will pay benefts for years to come.
But to make a plan a reality takes passion and commitment. From everyone.
"It's a window of opportunity," Melendez de Santa Ana said in a story about the anniversary of Ethan's death in today's Daily Bulletin.
"I think we all know that, we all sense that. It brings with it a deep responsibility.
"If we don't take advantage of it, then shame on us."
Ethan Esparza has not been forgotten. Not by Randy Bekendam.
In Tuesday's Daily Bulletin, Staff Writer Monica Rodriguez brought us the inspiring tale of a Rancho Cucamonga man who couldn't, and wouldn't, let the memory of 3-year-old Ethan die.
After Ethan was gunned down in a drive-by outside his parent's home almost four months ago, he asked himself a hard question
"Does my life really make a difference?"
Out of than came Operation ETHAN, or Everyone Together Healing All Neighborhoods.
He says it's a call to action, and we agree.
Bekendam wants to bring people with business skills to help someone learn how to manage a budget.
He wants to create community gardens where young and old can meet and share the fruits and vegetables of their labors.
He wants to keep kids off the streets and give people hope.
It's in the good idea stage now, but Bekendam is giving the community a chance to making a real difference.
Don't think one person can do anything about gang violence?
Think again.
As part of its crackdown on gangs, LA Police Chief William Bratton has broken with a four-decade tradition and is naming the gangs who've made the city the gang capital of America.
Critics say the decision is wrong. They say in the gang world, publicity if a badge of honor.
I don't agree.
To fight gangs you need to know your enemy. Gangs are not generic. One size definitely does not fit all.
In the notorious Casa Blanca neighborhood of Riverside, the Vagabundos and Devil Wolves may seem alike at first glance.
They are both Hispanic. They share the same square-mile neighborhood. But they've been killing each other for more than three decades.
Each gang shares common traits, yet each gang is unique. And if gangs like the attention, Bratton says so be it. He'll give them all the attention they want, not to mention prison time.
I think the more the public knows about their community the better.
What do you think?
Anyone who's reported on gangs and violence has heard this before. It may even be true.
But being a protective mother or father is no substitute for knowledge. Or action.
The DOJ's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) has created a quick reference guide on the common signs your child may be involved in a gang.
Some are pretty obvious: your child admits to hanging with gang members, uses unsual hand signals to communicate with friends, draws gang symbols on school books, clothes or walls, has a gang tattoo or even carries a weapon.
It may just be a pose. It may not.
Good parenting is a key to prevention. COPS suggests spending time with your child and get involved with their school's activities.
Know you child's friends and their families. Teach your child how to handle peer pressure.
Be honest. Talk with them about the dangers of gang involvement. Let them know you don't want them to end up injured, in jail or dead.
It's a battle worth fighting, and you don't have to do it alone. Get involved early, and ask school officials, law enforcement, church leaders for help.
For much more information on what you can do to keep your child safe and out of gangs, check out the COPS link at http://safestate.org.
There are times when even the experts who know gangs best seem ready to throw up their hands. Gangs heve been killing for years. People become numb to violence. If it's not your neighborhood, not your city, it's one more sad story - if it even registers at all.
Inside the neighborhood it can be worse. I remember a man who had lived in Riverside's most notorious gang neighborhood for decades. A young man had been killed in his driveway, shot point blank with a hunting rifle.
It wasn't the first body that landed in his yard.
"What can you do about the gangs?" he said.
Indeed.
Forty days after 3-year-old Ethan Esparza was gunned down outside his grandmother's Pomona home, after the vigils and the calls for the killers to come forward, Ethan's life seems dangerously close to becoming a "what can you do?" moment.
That's where you come in. We want you to be honest, open, clever, thoughtful, practical, impractical, even angry (to a point). Tell us what we can do to prevent another innocent - and even not so innocent - person from dying in gang violence.
A lot of kids are killed, I was told recently. Why focus so much on Ethan?
Then he gave me the answer.
Ethan was murdered at his 4th birthday party. He was killed because too many people said "what can we do?"
Let's make him the face we remember.
Let's talk about solutions
- Mark Petix
Gang violence continues to plague communities throughout the Inland Valley, most recently in Pomona, where 3-year-old Ethan Esparza was killed on the front lawn of his grandparents' home, the victim of a drive-by shooting. What can Inland Valley residents do to end the scourge of violence?