Grief threatens to topple a family’s silent world

They stood on the South-Central pavement, filled with confusion and terror.

On the ground in front of them they saw their brother, Eddy Hernandez, killed by a single gunshot. Blood covered the concrete. Squad car lights flickered. Caution tape swayed in the wind.

But the Hernandez family heard almost nothing at all.

Eddy Hernandez, 30, and four of his five siblings were born deaf or hard of hearing. His brothers and sisters who gathered on the 3700 block of Main Street could only gaze as his body was examined and carried into the January night.

He died last Jan. 26, about two miles from the small apartment he shared with his father, siblings and nieces and nephews.

He was often the one at the center of the family’s world, always telling jokes or offering advice. They all watched as he coached Fairfax High School’s team of deaf basketball players. They admired his ability to motivate others.

But they also saw him fall into the deepest lulls. He had separated from the mother of his daughter and had troubles with the law. For years he had suffered bouts of depression and loneliness.

Police do not know why he turned up dead on Jan. 26. In June, the Los Angeles Police Department posted a $50,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest.

The Hernandez family is still waiting and wondering. The players on his basketball team dedicated their season to their coach.

“He was a brave guy,” team captain Jeffrey Hernandez wrote in a message. “He wouldn’t give up on anything.”

*

Eddy Hernandez wore a hearing aid but often had trouble deciphering speech. Whenever he couldn’t understand a conversation, he replied with a rapid series of questions. He never asked for help.

His mother died when he was teenager, and he never finished high school. For years, he worked odd jobs. At the time of his death, he was taking classes to become an auto mechanic.

Sometimes the burden was too heavy to bear. Hernandez would unravel after long, frustrating days. He crashed on the leather couch in the family’s living room and sat in silent despair. Many times the breakdowns came after arguments with his girlfriend, Judith Aguilar.

In 2005, Hernandez fell into complete melancholy. He would leave at night and wander the streets alone. He attempted suicide that year and was briefly hospitalized.

“We said ‘stop, stop, stop!’ ” his sister Ana, 35, said through an American Sign Language translator. “He was just going crazy.”

During those days, basketball became his escape.

He played every day. He found pick-up games around the neighborhood and joined adult leagues for deaf players. Some days, he awoke early and shot jumpers at a court on 69th and Hoover.

He was short for basketball — barely 5 feet, 5 inches tall — so he had to use his speed and quickness, his younger brother Emanuel said. He liked to handle the ball; he was a crafty dribbler and a sharp passer.

The rhythm of the game offered a kind of therapy.

His love for basketball took him back to Fairfax High, the school from which he had dropped out a decade before. In 2007, he became coach of the school’s deaf basketball team.

Most administrators at the school didn’t know him. They described the team as an informal club that played in only one tournament each spring. Still, Hernandez had his players preparing months in advance, Fairfax athletic director Judy Edwards said.

Hernandez always demanded that the team play with pride. That meant showing up on time and competing hard, even on the days when the team had to practice on the blacktop outside.

“He was my basketball coach and my best friend,” wrote Jeffery Hernandez, who is not related to Eddy Hernandez.

In May 2009, with Hernandez coaching, Fairfax won its first ever Deaf and Hard of Hearing Tournament championship. His entire family was in the gym that day.

“See — I did it,” he said to his sister Elizabeth afterward. “I really did it.”

The players returned to Fairfax with their trophy the next school day.

“I didn’t even know they had a team before that,” Fairfax Principal Edward Zubiate said. “But they were running up and down the halls with the trophy and taking pictures and everything. It was so great.”

Elizabeth Hernandez, the youngest sibling and the only with no hearing difficulties, said her brother was “counting the days” until the 2010 tournament, when his team would have a chance to defend its title.

But as much as basketball could help, Hernandez continued to experience depression. He had separated from Aguilar a few years earlier and complained that he didn’t get to see his young daughter Roxanna more often.

Last December, Eddy Hernandez was arrested on suspicion of assaulting an officer and possession of cocaine. His siblings viewed it as another setback for him but hoped that the positive forces in his life — his basketball team and family — would prevail.

*

Hernandez couldn’t hear well enough to make calls, but he used a T-Mobile Sidekick for text messaging. On the night of Jan. 26, he reached for the phone and typed a message to Donald Marshall, the assistant on the Fairfax team. His bus hadn’t shown up that night. He needed a ride.

Marshall met up with another friend, Tino Flores, and they drove to find Hernandez. They did not see him immediately. Marshall is deaf and Flores is hard of hearing; they couldn’t shout out Hernandez’s name. Flores looped the car around and around, past the warehouses and barred windows of those industrial streets.

When they finally found their friend, Hernandez was lying on the ground, bleeding. Marshall and Flores said they could immediately tell he was dead.

Bystanders had already called police, who arrived about 10:30 p.m.

Family and friends arrived at the scene in small groups. There were about 15 people total. Everyone wanted answers but there were few clues: Hernandez was killed by a single gunshot to the face on a mostly vacant block of Main Street. His wallet and cellphone were gone. There were no witnesses.

The family quietly retreated to the apartment. Everyone clutched one of Eddy Hernandez’s belongings. For hours it was totally silent, and no one could fall asleep.

The first days after his death were excruciating, the family said. Elizabeth took three weeks off work. Emanuel stopped his search for a job. Clemente, Eddy’s father, who speaks only Spanish, would sit alone and repeat a single phrase.

“Eddy was a champion.”

The family, which came from Guatemala in the 1980s, has always been close. But in their agony, it seems they have turned even more inward. Elizabeth Hernandez said the family did not know of any support groups for deaf families and, for the most part, they do not like to discuss their brother’s death.

Six months have passed with no answers or explanations. The case remains unsolved. Elizabeth Hernandez, 22, said she’s grown weary of making phone calls to the police. She is the only family member who can use a regular phone.

Detectives hope the reward will bring new leads, but they say Hernandez’s death is a mystery. Police do not believe his earlier arrest is connected to the slaying.

“He has no documented history with gangs,” said Det. David Torres.

Family members have carefully arranged photos of him throughout their apartment. From any corner, a picture or memento is visible.

At the front doorway sits an elaborate memorial with photos and candles and symbols of things Hernandez loved: pictures of Roxanna, the Fairfax polo shirt he wore during games, his Bible, a bracelet from Guatemala.

In the main room of the apartment — half kitchen, half living room — hangs a faded, outdated Lakers poster. It replicates a movie poster from the 2003 film “Matrix Reloaded,” but instead of actors it features the Lakers lineup: Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Gary Payton, Karl Malone, Derek Fisher, Rick Fox and Devean George. A large caption at the bottom reads “Lakers Reloaded.”

The Lakers had fallen short of the finals the season before but, as the caption suggests, the team was poised for a comeback; the players confident.

Atop Devean George’s face, the family has taped a portrait of Hernandez.

Like those beside it, the image shows the face of a strong man, head held high, ready to take on the world.

sam.allen@latimes.com