Warfare : Pomona Neighborhoods Bleed Under Siege of Gang Violence

Dolores Zapien was watching television when she heard the sudden crackle of gunfire outside her home.

She ran into the early morning darkness, where her younger son lay dying, bleeding from a bullet wound in his chest.

It brought back a nightmare she never expected to be repeated.

Eight months earlier, on April 13, bullets fired from a passing truck had killed her husband, Raul Zapien Sr., only a few feet from the driveway where her 19-year-old son, Andrew, fell shortly before 2 a.m on Dec. 7.

“There’s really no feeling; I’m empty,” Dolores Zapien said after her son’s death. “I just feel like he’s gone for the day, like he’ll be back tonight. With my husband, I just put in my mind that he has gone to work.”

Both men were random targets in a decades-old feud between two Pomona gangs, a war whose origins seem to have been forgotten. But neither father nor son was a gang member, according to police and family members.

The shootings of the two men were not the first for the family. The elder Zapien’s mother and sister were wounded by a drive-by shooter while they were visiting the Zapien home on Feb. 9.

No one has been arrested for Andrew Zapien’s slaying or the shootings of the two women, although four men were arrested in connection with the killing of the elder Zapien. All but one were released for lack of evidence.

The remaining suspect is Arthur Garcia of Pomona, who police believe drove the truck from which the shot that killed the elder Zapien was fired. Garcia is awaiting trial on a charge of murder in Pomona Superior Court on Feb. 25.

Many other families in Pomona have been shattered by gang violence, but the problem is especially severe in a tiny neighborhood called Cherrieville, about 75 homes clustered around a horseshoe-shaped street. Police said 13 people, including Andrew and his father, have been killed there during seven years of gang warfare.

“It’s like a shooting gallery in here,” said Jeannie Aviles, one of three sisters in the neighborhood who have each lost a son to gang violence, and one of many Cherrieville residents who have similar stories to tell.

The neighborhood has by far the city’s highest concentration of gang-related deaths, although 36 others have occurred elsewhere in the city since 1978, according to police records.

Homicide detectives in several East San Gabriel Valley cities, including West Covina and La Verne, agree with Pomona police who say that gang violence in Pomona is the worst in the area.

Those familiar with the gangs’ deepest roots say that what began as occasional fist fights over territory in the 1920s has grown into increasingly violent confrontations over the years. Today, police say, the warfare is conducted almost exclusively with pistols and rifles, seemingly aimed more and more often at the innocent.

‘They Bleed, They Die’

“It’s escalated because of the losses that have occurred,” said Sgt. Louis Hernandez, who specialized in investigating gang killings for five years before being transferred to administrative duties. “Most of the gang members wish it wouldn’t happen anymore. They don’t enjoy getting shot. They hurt, they bleed, they die just like everyone else. But it’s their way. It’s something they just can’t let go of, because of all of the injury and killing that has gone on before.”

The reasons for the killings are often unclear. A tradition of silence among gang members keeps many cases from ever reaching the courts, and uninvolved witnesses often feel too intimidated to help with investigations, Hernandez said.

“The gang that’s the victim will usually know who in the other gang is responsible,” Hernandez said. “Sometimes they’ll tell us and sometimes they won’t. That’s why prosecution is very difficult in gang cases. They have a fear of being labeled as raton, a rat, and not carrying on the gang image of taking care of it themselves.”

Two Gangs

Most of the violence is attributed to two Latino gangs that have taken many names throughout their long histories, but have been known as “Cherrieville” and “12th Street” since the early 1960s.

The 12th Street gang began as a loose coalition of several smaller gangs, with the “Sharkies,” founded in the 1950s, as its strongest force, said Rudy Gutierrez, director of Casa Esparanza, a mental health referral and counseling service in Pomona. Gutierrez, who said he has provided counseling for a number of gang members and has pieced together the history of both gangs, grew up in Cherrieville.

The 12th Street gang is Pomona’s largest and most violent, encompassing families throughout South Pomona, Hernandez and Gutierrez said.

Cherrieville is unable to expand its territory beyond its four-block boundary or match the furious frequency of 12th Street attacks, said Gutierrez.

The smaller gang’s home turf, he said, isolated from other neighborhoods by railroad tracks, vacant lots, an industrial district and a major thoroughfare, is much more cohesive and insular.

12th Street Gang

The 12th Street gang is believed to be responsible for most of the shootings in Cherrieville, including those of Andrew and his father. Hernandez said the gang has 150 to 200 members, about 50 of whom form the core that carries out the attacks.

By contrast, he said, the Cherrieville gang is only 75 to 80 members strong, with 20 to 25 hard-core members. Most of the active members of both gangs are between 12 and 16 years old, he said. Police say that of the 14 gang-related killings in areas dominated by 12th Street since 1978, only five have been attributed to the Cherrieville gang; most of the other killings are blamed on 12th Street members. In addition, the 12th Street gang is believed by police to be responsible for gang-related killings in other areas of the city.

Police say other gangs in Pomona--Latino gangs such as Happytown and the Northsiders, or black gangs like the 357s--are smaller, less established and less violent.

Random hits by the 12th Streeters against the Cherrieville neighborhood, and less frequent but equally violent counterattacks by the Cherrievillers against 12th Street, arise from a tradition of hatred.

Knowing They Hate

“They grew up knowing they hate the people over here,” Andrew’s 22-year-old brother, Raul Zapien Jr., said of the 12th Streeters. “They don’t know us, they never met us, but anybody on this side of the tracks, they’re the enemy.”

Although he says he has never been tempted to join the neighborhood gang, Raul Zapien said growing up in Cherrieville has often brought him into contact with gang members.

“All my mom’s relatives live on that side of town,” he said of the 12th Street area. “Everybody’s related to each other. That’s what makes it so stupid.”

Although the pressures in Cherrieville and other neighborhoods to join gangs is intense, gang counselor Gutierrez said it can be overcome.

Gutierrez, now 36, said he rejected appeals to join the Cherrieville gang, even though he was attacked and beaten several times for refusing.

Encounter Pressure

Gutierrez said it is almost impossible to grow up in Cherrieville without encountering pressure to join. “It’s a way for a kid to show his machismo. A poor way, but easier than to sit in school and challenge the educational system, which is not geared toward them.”

Gutierrez said shootings are more common now than they were when he was a teen-ager because guns are more readily available and gang members find it easier to use them than fists or knives.

“I think these guys are scared to get hurt,” he said. “It’s easier to shoot somebody than to lose pride if you get beat up.”

Father Bernard Flanigan, pastor of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, which lies on Cherrieville’s western boundary, said many members of his congregation are victimized by gangs, but he thinks that there is little he can do to help.

“They just seemed to be entrapped,” Flanigan said. “They don’t seem to be able to lift themselves up.”

Don’t Stay by Choice

Those who remain in Cherrieville say they do not do so by choice.

Aviles and her sisters, as well as the Zapiens, say they dream of leaving their rented homes in the neighborhood, but cannot afford to make the move.

If a Pomona councilwoman’s intervention is successful, however, the Zapiens may find a way out. Donna Smith, who said she was appalled when she learned recently of the predicament of Cherrieville residents, has taken up the Zapiens’ cause and is seeking to use redevelopment funds to relocate them.

“This family would like to leave but they don’t have the money,” Smith said. “They don’t have anywhere to go.”

Other residents say they too would leave if they could afford it. But assembling what landlords usually require from new tenants--first and last month’s rent and a security or cleaning deposit--is for them a financial impossibility.

“It’s too hard for us to move out,” said Aviles. “The homes are too expensive.”

Unusually Strong Bond

An unusually strong bond among residents, a loyalty born as much of shared tragedy as the fact that many who live there are related to one another, also keeps many hoping that if they can hang on long enough, violence in the neighborhood will end.

“We live here,” said Molly Monsivias, one of Aviles’ sisters. “That’s where our friends are.”

Father Greg King, who spent four years at St. Joseph’s working with gang members, said that the same attitude encourages a fierce neighborhood identity that makes gang membership appear to be a natural choice.

“In general kids live up to their own expectations of themselves,” King said. “They prove themselves in a different way--not on the football field, or in school. They prove themselves in gangs.” King, who left St. Joseph’s in 1980, now does similar counseling work in East Los Angeles.

Scars Are Evident

Scars of the continuing battle are evident throughout Cherrieville. The blemishes most apparent are the graffiti; some strive to be artistic, but most are merely cryptic, hastily scribbled statements of territorial pride.

The graffiti crawl over street surfaces, fences, telephone poles, and on playground equipment in Cherrieville Park. On a wall that faces into the park toward busy Hamilton Boulevard, “CHERRIEVILLE” has been sprayed neatly in chest-high letters that cast a painted shadow. The rest of the wall is wreathed with various gang ciphers.

Other scars are less apparent from the street.

A prime target because of its location--it is one of only three houses in Cherrieville that are adjacent to Hamilton Boulevard, a main thoroughfare, and the only one of the three with bedroom windows, living room window and porch facing the street--the Zapien home has a handful of visible bullet holes in the living room, dining room and bedrooms; two in a pane of the front window, and more in the walls and doorways.

Mother, Sister Wounded

Raul Zapien Sr.’s 70-year-old mother, Josephine Zapien, was shot in the shoulder and his sister, Rose Mary Guzman, was was wounded in the stomach while visiting the Zapien home last February. Both were hospitalized and subsequently recovered.

Guzman, who lives with her husband, her three sons and her mother in Cherrieville, said her own house has been fired upon several times since the family moved there in 1968.

Detectives estimated that they receive calls about shootings in the neighborhood at least once a week, and some weeks, once a day.

Dolores Zapien said she spends much of her leisure time in a back bedroom on the ground floor--a colder room, but less exposed than the living room. Years of awakening to ricocheting bullets, she said, have taught her caution.

She said that Andrew was returning home from a night with friends when he was shot as he was getting out of his truck; his father had been laughing and eating oranges on the front porch after work, and died shielding her from bullets.

Slept on the Floor

A neighbor who declined to be identified said frequent shots fired into her home forced her to sleep on the floor for several years, and to impose the same practice on her eight children as they were growing up.

“Day, morning, afternoon--there’s no time set,” Dolores Zapien said. “But it’s usually at night time, or early in the mornings.”

“It’s awful for my kids,” Guzman said. “I’m afraid to let them go out to play.”

Aviles, Monsivias and a third sister, Rachel Rico, share a triplex apartment close to Cherrieville Park as well as painful memories.

Monsivias said a birth defect that left her 15-year-old son, Hector, deaf and mute, made it unlikely that he had joined a gang before he was shot to death in Cherrieville Park in 1979.

“I’m afraid for my other boys,” said Monsivias, whose remaining two sons, ages 21 and 7, and three daughters, ages 19, 18 and 6, sometimes venture into the park. “They don’t want none of my boys yet, but when they want them, they’ll come.”

Son-in-Law Gunned Down

Tragedy struck again for Monsivias when Ramon Atilano, who was to be married to one of her daughters, was gunned down while riding his bicycle early one morning in 1984.

Police said they do not believe that the 23-year-old Atilano was a member of a gang. Like many of the other murders, his is unsolved.

Rico lost her son, Steven, who was 24 when he died in 1978, again in a drive-by shooting. He was suspected by police of being a member of the Cherrieville gang. According to a police report, he was playing cards outside a friend’s home in Cherrieville when he was shot. That case, too, remains unsolved.

Aviles, the eldest of the three sisters, lost her son, Anthony, in June. He had been shot twice before--once at 16, again at 22--before he was finally killed at age 23. Police say their investigation showed that a member of the 12th Street gang shot Aviles at a party on East Lincoln Avenue in north Pomona.

Fell Through Window

Police said others at the party chased the gunman to East McKinley Avenue and stabbed him several times. The man fell through a plate-glass window and died later at Pomona Valley Community Hospital.

Homicide detectives said they believe that Anthony Aviles was an active member of the Cherrieville gang. His mother is vague about any gang associations her son might have had.

“I’m not saying this neighborhood is perfect,” she said. “There may be some bad ones.”

Despite trouble finding steady work and meals for her other children, Aviles said she visits her son’s grave daily.

The tyranny of the gangs, say those in Cherrieville, has been a way of life for so long that it has rippled into almost every aspect of their existence. No one in the affected areas seems to be safe, not even schoolchildren.

12-Year-Olds Injured

On Nov. 15, two 12-year-old students walking home from Marshall Junior High School were injured when several men, who police believe were members of the 12th Street gang, opened fire from a passing car. Neither child was seriously hurt.

This time, police have a suspect. Edward Linnett, who was on probation after serving six months in jail for possession of a sawed-off shotgun, has been charged with two counts of attempted murder. A preliminary hearing is set for Jan. 30.

Pomona Unified School District officials have begun a program at Marshall, which is near Cherrieville’s northern boundary, and other schools in gang-dominated areas, to warn children about the dangers of becoming a gang member.

William J. Stelzner, the district’s coordinator of child welfare programs, said several elementary schools have stepped up enforcement of dress codes to eliminate clothing that signifies gang membership--scarves worn in certain places, T-shirts worn a certain way.

Formative Age

“That’s a very formative age,” Stelzner said. “It begins with looking like a gang member, in the ‘cholo’ fashion. After the looks comes the attitude.”

Cherrieville Park, constructed in 1974 in the hope of diverting children from gang activities, has instead become an easy target for rival gangs, and occasionally a staging ground for gang assaults.

The same is true of Sharkie Park in south Pomona, where 12th Street gang members gather and are sometimes attacked, police said.

Police say Pomona’s gangs are largely beyond their control. With limited resources and uncooperative witnesses, they say much of the violence continues unchecked.

The Zapiens, and several of their neighbors, said they have given up reporting all but the most serious incidents because the police respond too slowly to their calls for help, sometimes taking as long as half an hour to investigate reports of shots fired in the neighborhood.

“To them it’s just one Mexican killing another,” Guzman said. “It doesn’t matter to them.”

Denied by Police Chief

Police Chief Don Burnett denied that police respond too slowly and are unconcerned about the Latino population.

“We don’t ignore any segment of this community,” Burnett said.

But some Pomona detectives expressed exasperation with what they believe are cultural traditions that make Latino gangs violent, territorial and reluctant to testify in court.

“Mexican gangs kill each other,” said Lt. Ernie Allsup, in charge of the detective bureau. “For some reason Mexicans single out an area. They just love to kill each other. They don’t kill blacks, they just kill each other.”

Homicide Detective Ronald Windell said he has heard some frustrated officers speak of letting gang members “kill each other off.” While such statements may be facetious, he says the frustration is real.

‘Sketchy Information’

“When you get into a case like this, say there’s 15 people in Cherrieville Park, you get all those 15 people and every statement out of their mouth is, ‘I don’t know, I just got here,’ ” Windell said. “We’re left with a dead body on the street and some very sketchy information.

“We can only do so much,” he said. “If we’re swamped to the point where we’re overwhelmed we have to do what we can and let the rest fall through the boards.”

For Dolores Zapien, and others in Cherrieville, the system seems to offer little hope.

“If the police can’t do anything,” she said, “what can I do?”