Dispatch: A Son Speaks

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Christian Damian, 25, the oldest of five children of victim Jose Alberto Damian Valdez, recalled, a day after the murder, how he got the call at home and raced to the scene. His father had already been taken to the hospital. ‘’When I got here, I saw my sister’s hands full of blood,’ he said.

The son spoke in a quiet monotone, hands folded in front of him.

His father was a quiet, serious man from the Mexican state of Nayarit, the son said. He worked at any job that would support his family. He buffed cars at a car wash. He sold clothes at the L.A. City College swap meet. Saturday was the only day he took off each week, he said.

The son works rebuilding printer cartridges, and lives with his wife and baby son in the area. His father invited him over on Easter Sunday, saying he had bought chocolate for the baby. ‘But I do not have a car, so I did not come over,’ Christian Damian said. ‘I didn’t know it would be the last time.’

It happened about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 10 in the 4200 block of South Olive Street, and died at California Hospital several hours later. The assailants, described as two men--one Latino, the other of Latino or of mixed Latino/black descent--drove up in a white Buick Regal, possibly with a red landau top, passed twice, returned and shot him. Damian Valdez, 45, had been taking out trash cans, family members said. Anyone with any information about this crime is asked to please call investigators at (323) 846-6556.

(Left, the victim. Below, garbage cans where Damian was shot. The blue building in the background is an elementary school.)