Victim of Shooting Refuses to Let His Dream Die

Todd Joseph Dow grew up in South-Central Los Angeles, where he knew about the gangs, the drugs and the robberies.

So when two men drove up next to his car at a Crenshaw-area intersection last spring and one stuck a gun through the window and into his face, Dow knew what to do.

“I said, ‘You can have the car, I’m not going to fight.’ I got out and walked to the rear, and I heard a single gunshot. I looked at my arm bleeding and then my right side went numb, and I looked to my left and I saw a whole bunch of blood.”

A bullet had ripped through his kidney, bladder and spleen, lodging in his spine and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down--and apparently shut out of his life’s ambition to be a police officer.

In Hospital 3 Months

But the 22-year-old refused to let his dream die. Three months after the April 2 shooting, Dow was released from the hospital in a wheelchair. Three days later, he was working at the Southwest Division police station as a “crime prevention specialist volunteer.”

And next week, Dow expects to begin 17 weeks of training that could lead to a spot on the Los Angeles Police Department’s reserve unit.

Defying the prediction of his doctor, Dow has regained the use of his left leg and has learned to walk with the aid of a special brace on his right leg. He says he intends to keep exercising to strengthen his right leg--hoping that someday he will not need the brace.

“I started feeling better when I learned I was going to be able to walk again,” he said. “I had a lot of family support from my mother and my sister.”

In the days after he was shot, Dow also had a lot of support from the detectives working on his case. They visited him in the hospital and promised to catch his assailants, “which made me want to live and want to do better for myself,” Dow said.

An unpaid position was created for Dow by Detectives Jerry Anslow and Kenneth Hamilton, Southwest Division officers who investigated his case and were touched by his strength and determination to walk again.

“During the course of our investigation . . . we found out that Todd was an outstanding young man. A Marine going to college with a nice family, who had never been in any trouble . . . completely opposite from the guys who shot him,” Hamilton said.

Dow said that since his injury a special friendship has grown between him and Hamilton.

“When I was in the hospital, Kenneth told me if I needed a job I would have one. I had a lot of broken promises before, but he was the first person to really come through. Without his help I wouldn’t have made it back so soon,” Dow said.

The detectives visited Dow regularly in the hospital. After his release, Hamilton began stopping by the house each morning to drive him to the station to work.

From his desk in the front of the detectives’ squad room, Dow logs police reports, answers telephones and arranges for crime victims to view mug shots of criminal suspects. He is surrounded by detectives working on robbery and homicide cases, and he can’t help wishing he was one of them.

“If I can help prevent somebody from robbing somebody else I will have done my job,” he said. “Now, I am on the outside looking in and I want to reverse that.”

Two weeks after the shooting, police found Dow’s stolen car abandoned and stripped. Several weeks later, police arrested Roderick Eugene Cotton, 18, the gunman, and Johnny Louis Hill, 18, the getaway driver. Both were admitted members of the Rolling 60s Crips gang, Hamilton said.

Hill, who was out on bail on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon at the time of Dow’s shooting, is now serving 25 years to life in prison. Cotton has been sentenced to begin a 12-year term at a California Youth Authority facility, pending a transfer to a state prison when he turns 25--a sentence that Hamilton believes is not harsh enough.

Cotton, who resided in Rialto, has a violent juvenile record and admitted in court that he was in Los Angeles to collect money from a cocaine sale the day of Dow’s shooting, Hamilton said.

“During the trial Cotton kept referring to Todd as ‘the dude that got shot,’ ” Hamilton said.

Todd said he hopes he receives financial assistance from the state Victims of Crime Compensation Fund (a program that provides financial compensation for medical services and pays lost wages to victims of violent crimes up to $46,000) to allow him to return to college, where he plans to study criminal justice.

“My family is here for me. My friends are still here. I feel good,” Dow said. Still, “I wish the guys that shot me could feel the pain that I went through, not being able to walk or run.

“But, you can’t be bitter about it because you want to get better,” he said. “You can’t let things get you down. You can’t let this stop you from doing what you want to do, because then you let the criminal get away with doing what he was trying to do.”

Times staff writer Ann Wiener contributed to this story.