Readers React: Nipsey Hussle’s death was preventable. L.A. must recommit to curbing gang violence

To the editor: In the wake of Nipsey Hussle’s tragic shooting death, an L.A. Times editorial asks how we make it better for the victims of violence in parts of Los Angeles.

We already know how: Violence reduction requires a multiple-front attack on the conditions that produce hopelessness and high-crime neighborhoods.

In 2010, Los Angeles replaced a 40-year war on gangs with this comprehensive strategy. We organized neighborhoods, emphasized community safety partnership policing and launched the Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development, which was responsible for professionalizing gang intervention, preventing retaliation shootings, reducing gang risk factors, running Summer Night Lights (which keeps parks open and lit during peak gang activity hours after dark) and coordinating with police.

It worked: The gang homicide epidemic ended, retaliation shootings plummeted, and gang crime fell more steeply than in areas without this strategy. Unfortunately, some leaders are now pulling back on these efforts.

Celebrity contributions are important symbolically. But we know that sustaining public safety in traumatized neighborhoods requires us to build healthy families, fortify neighborhoods and invigorate schools, and it needs police who win trust and provide safety without mass stops or excessive arrests.

Connie Rice, Los Angeles

The writer is a civil rights lawyer.

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To the editor: What a shame that someone who fought his way out of a life of street violence and then intervened to help young people was killed in yet another senseless shooting. Hussle showed other entertainers what they could be doing to help those who are trapped in a life of gang violence.

Maybe Hussle’s life will inspire other entertainers to help those still struggling. After all, how big a house does one need? How many super expensive cars? How many homes?

Certainly these people with so much can still live large while following Hussle’s example.

Suzanne Brugman, La Habra Heights

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To the editor: The editorial is correct that in South Los Angeles, “such tragic violence is far too common.” But let this acknowledgement serve a dual function.

Remember it when you consider complaints that the Los Angeles Police Department is wrong when it aggressively patrols poor, violence-ridden neighborhoods. Use it to remind these complainers that the victims of these criminals are also residents of these areas.

Robert S. Henry, San Gabriel

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