In the End, Reseda High Athlete Couldn’t Elude Mean Streets

‘If they wanted the car, they could have had the car. They didn’t have to kill him.’

Alma Jones

Not long ago, Chris Jones told a teen-age boy in his south Los Angeles neighborhood that playing sports is better than getting involved in gangs or drugs.

As a teen-ager himself, Jones had volunteered to be bused 30 miles to Reseda High School to avoid neighborhood violence. There, he became a star football player who friends said seemed destined to sidestep the pitfalls of the inner city.

The neighborhood youth, 15-year-old Jerome Lawrence, planned to do the same, but Jones, 20, won’t be around to see him all the way through.

Jones, who was only a block from his home, was the victim of a robber’s bullet the night of Aug. 15, Los Angeles police said.

Jones was slain in his car as he and one of his brothers were returning from playing basketball in Culver City, detectives said. The killer apparently was trying to rob Jones of his customized Volkswagen Beetle, they said.

By all accounts, the type of random violence that killed Jones was what he had sought to avoid by attending Reseda High, where he was an All-League Pac 8 wide receiver in 1983 and 1984.

“It’s ironic,” Reseda football Coach Joel Schaeffer said. “Chris was just talking to me about getting a kid out of the neighborhood and getting him involved in our football program.”

Lawrence said Jones recently “started treating me and taking me to the mall, encouraging me. . . . He wanted me to go, and I wanted to go. It would be better to get out of all the problems and all the gangs and gang violence.”

Perhaps Jones saw something of himself in Lawrence, whom he introduced to another favorite hobby: raising pigeons. Jones had about 60 birds and helped Lawrence build a backyard cage that would hold about 20, Lawrence said.

“He told me that, if I put my mind to it, I could do anything I want to,” Lawrence said.

Jones’ friend and ex-teammate, Chris Coleman, 20, remembers how he was considering giving up his football scholarship at a Tennessee Tech University until Jones talked him out of it.

Coleman said he and Jones entered the busing program and joined the Reseda High football team “for all the same reasons--just to get away from all the violence in the city.”

At Reseda High, Jones was an average student who concentrated much of his energy on football, Schaeffer said.

Jones was “a real rail job,” the coach said, referring to Jones’ thin frame. A standing joke around the Reseda field house was Jones’ listing in the football program at 160 pounds, when he actually was closer to 120, Schaeffer said. But Jones was determined, athletically graceful and fast on his feet, earning the nicknames “Sweetness” and “Bambi,” he said.

“A couple of times, we thought he was broken in half,” the coach said. “But he’d just pop up with a smile on his face as if to say, ‘It didn’t hurt.’ ”

“He was the toughest kid we ever had here,” said Assistant Coach Mike Stone.

Yet Jones realized that his size precluded a career in football, and he decided to become an X-ray technician, family members said. He had studied at Los Angeles Valley College and planned to attend El Camino College this fall.

Sought Career in Medicine

He viewed his job as a lab assistant at Analytical Clinical Labs in Los Angeles as “a steppingstone” into the medical field, said his employer, William S. Flores. Much of Jones’ job involved visiting medical clinics and doctors’ offices, which send blood and urine samples to the lab for testing, he said.

The lab usually doesn’t hire young people, he said, but Jones was brought aboard because of his easy, confident manner.

“If you talked to him, you would probably think he was 40,” said his father, William Jones, 58.

Several years ago, when Schaeffer was scouting a game in south Los Angeles with Jones and his brother, Michael, now 24, gunfire erupted from the crowd, Schaeffer said. The brothers “took control of the situation,” escorted Schaeffer to his car and told him to drive home, he said.

Schaeffer said Jones rarely talked about his neighborhood, in the vicinity of Western and Manchester avenues. He lived all his life there, but wanted to avoid gang-ridden Washington High School, said his parents, who tried to put the loss of the youngest of their five sons in perspective. It could have been worse, they said.

“This is the first time something really serious has happened, with five boys,” said Alma Jones, 51, Chris’ mother and an office worker at an elementary school. “In an inner-city neighborhood, with so much going on, we feel very, very fortunate and lucky.”

“There’s a kind of lawlessness going on out here,” said her husband, a retired teacher. “You don’t know who’s shooting at who.”

The neighborhood wasn’t so bad when the couple bought their home 23 years ago, they said. There were fewer apartments, an ethnic mix, and few drug or gang problems. Even now, most of the lawns and single-family stucco homes are well-tended, in contrast to the area east of nearby Vermont Avenue.

Severe Gang Problems

But some of the area’s best-kept neighborhoods also have severe gang problems, said police Capt. Eric A. Lillo, commander of patrol for the Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Street Division.

“Some of the areas that have the biggest gang problems are not necessarily the ones that look the worst on the surface,” Lillo said.

Chris Jones’ four brothers said they were reminded constantly of the threat of violence in their neighborhood. Russell Jones, 27, said he was shot in the leg in 1982 when a passing car full of gang members opened fire on him and several other people standing on a corner near his home.

He said he is not yet able to drive by the spot where his brother was slain. But, on Thursday, there was no escape. He took another path through the neighborhood, but his way was blocked by yellow police lines; around the corner, a young man had been shot to death and another critically wounded in what police believe was a gang-related shooting.

“They’ve got the tape out,” Russell Jones said on seeing the police line fluttering in the wind. It was as if he already knew all that had happened.

‘What Ifs’ About Death

Michael was with Chris on that fateful Saturday. Michael said there are many “what ifs” about Chris’ death.

Chris spent most Saturdays with his fiancee, Nia Jackson, 20, but that weekend she was in Las Vegas with friends.

Sunday was the day the Jones brothers played basketball. But, on Aug. 15, Michael Jones had an unexpected day off from his truck-driving job after a spat with his boss.

“If I’d have gone to work, we wouldn’t have played,” Michael said.

On the way home, the southbound San Diego Freeway was jammed, he said. Instead of taking their usual exit at Manchester Avenue, Chris, who had told his mother he would be home by 8 p.m., got off at Slauson Avenue to avoid the traffic.

It was shortly after 8 when a car passed Chris Jones’ car on West 84th Street and stopped at Denker Avenue, Michael Jones said. A gunman jumped from the passenger seat and said, “Get out of the car,” he recounted.

“Chris fumbled,” he said. “The guy didn’t give us any time to react.”

The gunman reached into the open sunroof of the car and fired the fatal shot before running back to the other car and fleeing, Michael said. No suspects have been identified in the shooting, detectives said.

Chris Jones had meticulously restored the shiny black 1966 Volkswagen, but had grown tired of it and, two weeks before his death, tried to sell it at an automobile show, Russell said.

“If they wanted the car, they could have had the car,” his mother said. “They didn’t have to kill him.”