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Accord on Gang Problem, but Dissent on Eviction as a Solution

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Times Staff Writer

There is little argument about who lives in most of the apartments at Main and 69th streets in South Los Angeles: Gangsters, their family members and their associates. There is also wide agreement on what goes on there: trouble.

Schoolchildren from Mary McLeod Bethune Middle School say that they get picked on when they walk past after classes. An elderly couple say they go blocks out of their way to avoid the complex. Business owners say they and their customers get robbed and then see the thieves outside the three apartment buildings.

Denise Dawes, a single woman who lives around the corner, says that her car has been broken into, her house has been burglarized and her walls have been sprayed with bullets.

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“I don’t dare walk past that street because of that complex,” she said. “Stuff has been stolen out of my house. There was a drive-by shooting a few months ago, and a year ago, I woke up and there was a man standing in my living room. He was about to go into my purse.”

But ambiguity enters when local residents discuss the city’s decision to evict all the tenants, active gang members or not, young and old.

The city says that it is the only way to rid the neighborhood of the East Coast Crips, a gang that police say has been involved in several recent shootings in South Los Angeles.

While some residents agree with the city, others say that some of the tenants are the victims of guilt by association. Some of those being evicted, they say, are not in gangs but have cousins, nephews, sons or siblings who are. What are they supposed to do, they ask, turn their backs on family?

“It’s unfair that they’re going to blanket everyone,” Dawes said. “Not everybody over there is a gang member.”

To neighbor Miguel Covarrubias, however, the mass evictions may be the only way to reduce the fear that comes with living in the community.

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“It’s sad because [those being evicted] have children. But I don’t think it’s safe walking through there,” said Covarrubias, 20. “They start picking on you, and you never know” what’s going to happen. “I’ve been pushed around, physical stuff. I avoid walking through there as much as possible.”

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Lamar Taylor, 22, lives in the complex but denies that he has ever been a gang member or has any family members in a gang. His family has been given an eviction notice.

“What is my crime? Talking to gang members? They’re overdoing it,” Taylor said.

He doubted that the city’s action would have any lasting effect on the neighborhood.

“What do you think they’re going to do? They’re going to move down the block,” he said. “I’ve never been in a gang, but I’m stuck here regardless. My mom was killed by gang violence when I was 14. Don’t you think I would move if I could?”

City officials said that tenants who have no history of gang affiliation will be eligible for relocation assistance of as much as $5,000. But several tenants said they have not received information on the relocation program and don’t know where to turn. Others said they were turned down for assistance because of crimes that are years old.

A man who identified himself only by his gang nickname, Big Daddy, said he lives in the apartment complex with his wife and three children. He was raised there since he was born, he said. While he still considers himself a member of the East Coast Crips, he said he has had a steady job for two years and has been off parole for four years with no additional violations on his criminal record.

“They said I couldn’t get assistance because I had a felony,” he said. “What am I supposed to do now?”

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On Dec. 2, Judge Susan Bryant-Deason granted an injunction, requiring the property to be vacated by Feb. 7 and boarded up for three months. The fate of the property after that time is still unclear, although city officials have expressed hope that it will be used for retail purposes.

City officials said that the injunction was the last resort after years of attempting other remedies such as increased patrols, better lighting and negotiations with various property owners.

“This is one step,” said Jonathan Cristall, a deputy city attorney. “No one has said that by doing this, we’re going to eliminate the East Coast Crips and that they will never again harm another individual in the city. What we are saying is that we have taken a significant step to take care of this problem-plagued neighborhood that has been this way for more than 20 years.”

Police Lt. Brian Gilman of the Newton Division said that the eviction program “is just one tool in an ongoing strategy to address the endemic gang crime and violence centered around 69th and Main and Bethune Middle School.... This is not the end of the process of cleaning up that area.”

James Dunn, a gang intervention worker who lives in the neighborhood, said the East Coast Crips had been in the area for decades. But he said that in recent months, the gang has settled down because of a cease-fire with the Swans Family Bloods.

The East Coast Crips and the Swans are predominantly African American gangs. Many other gangs in the area are predominantly Latino. Dunn said that some of the more recent violence has involved clashes between the Crips and the Latino gangs, who are not involved in the cease-fire.

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U.S. census figures show that the Latino population in the ZIP Code area around the complex, as in other areas of South Los Angeles, has grown dramatically, while the number of African American residents has declined. From 1990 to 2000, the number of Latinos increased from 26,728 to 39,496. At the same time the number of black people dropped from 26,231 to 18,194.

Jose Martinez, 24, who identified himself as a retired member of Florence 13, a rival Latino gang in the area around Florence and Central avenues, said there is so much violence at the apartment complex because many rival gangs know that’s where the East Coast Crips hang out.

“They go and shoot at them over there for the simple reason that they know about those apartments,” he said.

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When school let out at Bethune Middle School on Wednesday afternoon, several students complained about being accosted by Crips at the apartment complex. One said his phone was stolen. Another said that teenage gang members there tried to pick fights with them.

Asked about the evictions, Principal Daryl Narimatsu declined to comment for fear of reprisals by the gang: “We have to be in the area after they leave,” he said. “But yes, there have been shootings.”

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Times staff writer Zeke Minaya contributed to this report.

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