The Mean Streets : Violence Claims 3rd Family Member Since November

Violence has rocked the lives of many inner-city families, but none more repeatedly than that of Peggy Graham.

Since November, Graham’s two children and her youngest brother have all been shot to death in three separate attacks on the streets of South-Central Los Angeles.

Last November, her younger son, Ermond Easley Jr., 16, was shot in the head and chest as he stood on a sidewalk a few blocks south of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

In February, Graham’s brother, Walter Dirks, 19, was shot to death by two men trying to steal his car as he waited for a friend outside a local liquor store.

And Friday, it was just after dark when the neighborhood kids came running in with the chilling news: her remaining son, Stacey Childress, 19, had been shot as he stood among a group of neighborhood youths, in one of the worst drive-by shootings in the city’s history.

The shooting left 10 others wounded and the neighborhood wondering who could be next.

All three of the slayings were apparently coincidental, according to police, family and friends.

But violent death is never fully a coincidence in gang territory, said the Rev. Leo Batie, as he consoled the still-stunned Graham on Wednesday afternoon.

“There are a lot of contributing factors,” said Batie, who delivered the eulogies at the two earlier funerals and is planning to do the same at Childress’ this weekend.

“We’ve got a lot of angry young men on our streets with no values, who will drive up and shoot people. . . . They have nothing to look forward to, they’re not afraid of jail and they’re not afraid of death.”

Graham, 38, spoke with a hardened familiarity toward the cruel fate that has befallen her family.

“You can’t be careful,” she said. “You can’t be careful because it could be right now. They could be rolling down the street right now. . . . You just have to go on with your life.”

For the three slain family members, their lives revolved around a modest, security-gated home where Graham lives with her mother, Ann Dirks, a few blocks south of the Coliseum.

Stacey, Walter and Ermond were an inseparable trio while growing up, with Stacey the most outgoing of the three, always with a smile on his face, according to relatives. Walter was a quiet boy and Ermond was described as independent.

While they lived in a tight-knit family, random violence was a fact of life on the streets outside.

“These kids can’t walk out of the house and over to the grocery store without passing through an area infested with dope,” Batie said.

For just that reason, Graham’s brother, Reginald Dirks, moved to Phoenix, where he works as a technician for AT&T.;

“I’d seen a lot of my friends pass on because of the violence,” said Reginald Dirks, who has returned for his nephew’s funeral.

Left Neighborhood

Stacey got out of the neighborhood for a while too, living with Dirks in Phoenix and attending high school. But South-Central Los Angeles is where his family and friends were and Stacey returned three years later.

Family members say the three youths may have known gang members but were never affiliated with gangs themselves, although they acknowledge that Stacey was arrested in December on a weapons charge that they contend was a misunderstanding.

Authorities said they have no information that Walter or Stacey had gang links--but Ermond, they say, was a gang member.

It was gang activity, authorities contend, that led to Ermond’s death last Nov. 12.

According to police, the youth angered members of a rival street gang when he erased graffiti they had painted on a wall at 43rd Street and Vermont Avenue.

“This upset the other gang tremendously,” Detective John Bunch said. “There were threats made that they were going to kill him and sure enough, he was killed.”

On Wednesday, as Graham was making funeral arrangements for Stacey, police announced an arrest in Ermond’s murder--the first in any of the three slayings.

Alexander Sanders, 20, was arrested on suspicion of having shot Ermond in the chest and the head in a drive-by shooting that occurred as Ermond stood on a neighborhood sidewalk.

Graham, when informed of the arrest, said she was pleased, but reiterated that her son was not a gang member.

Bunch disagreed: “I haven’t found a family yet that’s going to admit their son was a gangbanger. . . . He was definitely a gangbanger and had more than one arrest.”

When Ermond was buried last November, Batie conducted the service and Stacey and Walter were two of the pallbearers.

Less than three months later, Walter himself was killed by two men who were apparently trying to steal his car as he sat parked outside a liquor store at 8701 S. Normandie Ave. No suspects have been apprehended in the case.

Batie again conducted the funeral and Stacey again served as a pallbearer.

“He (Stacey) just stayed there at the funeral parlor staring at Walter’s body for hours,” the minister recalled. “He ended up with a fever because of the intensity of the trauma.”

Early Friday evening, Stacey went out with an uncle to visit some friends who lived a few blocks away on West 46th Street.

Shortly after 7 p.m., two suspected gang members shot a rival gang member two blocks north. These same gang members then shot a bystander in the same area before stopping their car in front of a crowd that included Stacey. Without warning, they opened fire, killing Stacey and wounding eight others. Police say that those in the group apparently were not affiliated with gangs.

After Walter’s death, Graham said, “Stacey felt he didn’t have anyone else.”

“He said, ‘I’m all by myself now,’ ” Graham said.

“Now they are close again,” said his aunt, Margaret Dirks, as she desperately sought to deal with the family’s grief. “Now all three are together.”