Harbor Conflicts Growing Deadlier : 8 Killings This Year Attributed to Gangs

There is a numbness this year in parts of Wilmington, San Pedro and Harbor City.

It is reflected in the voice of a mother whose boy was killed across the street from their home and in the words of a girl who sat with her boyfriend as he bled to death. You can see it in the eyes of young men who say they have nothing better to do than shoot at each other.

There have been 16 killings in the harbor area in the first three months of 1988, half of which police blame on gang members.

In comparison, there was one gang-related killing during the same period last year. Gang members have been implicated in an additional 157 assaults and robberies.

The neighborhoods surrounding the Port of Los Angeles are among the hot spots in a county that has seen gang violence mushroom. Los Angeles police and sheriff’s deputies report 73 gang killings in the first three months of 1988, compared to 49 during the same period last year.

A war between the east and west sides of Wilmington has divided the city, while rival Harbor City and Eastside Torrance gangs have renewed an old conflict, Los Angeles police detectives and social workers said. There are more guns, more drugs and a new recklessness among gang members across the area, residents, police and gang counselors said.

“There is no hierarchy on the streets,” said Ernie Paculba, coordinator of the Gang Alternative Program in San Pedro. “It’s pure anarchy, controlled by the gun and violence.

“In the past, there was a kind of leadership involved in gangs,” he said. “It involved physical strength, intelligence or cunning. But now the mad dog is respected. They are living la vida loca, the crazy life.”

Police say these values have spawned more violence.

Fascination With Killer

Angelo Regino, 18, is charged in the Jan. 7 shooting death of longshoreman Johnny Healy and in a robbery. Veteran Harbor Division homicide detective Larry Kallestad said Regino had developed a fascination with Freddy Krueger, the fictional mass killer in the “Nightmare on Elm Street” films.

Kallestad said Regino, whom he said is a member of the Rancho San Pedro gang, wore a hat like Krueger’s and allegedly told a robbery victim he was the movie killer.

Healy, 49, was sleeping in the back of his pickup truck when he was robbed and shot to death, police said.

Regino’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Irwin Pransky, said Regino was at a friend’s house when Healy was killed. Pransky said he does not know whether Regino is a gang member and declined to comment on the alleged connection to the “Elm Street” movie killer.

Violence is not new to Wilmington, a community where graffiti-covered walls and barred windows are common. But the mostly Latino community has always had intense pride and a determination to make things better.

That unity used to include all ages, locals say. Young men in Wilmington remember when they socialized with their counterparts on the other side of Avalon Boulevard.

That ended about two years ago, locals say, in a fight over a girl who dated a boy from the other side of the boulevard.

3 Boys Killed

Since then, gangs from the west side and east side of the boulevard have been at war. The rivalry has grown this year with the murders in just eight weeks of three teen-age boys--Jaime Gama, 14; Jose Pepe (Peps) Blanco, 17, and Rafael (Rafi) Pereda, 16..

Police attribute a fourth Wilmington killing to Sean White, 21, a reputed Compton gang member, and say it is not related to the local turf war. White will be tried for murder May 13 in Long Beach Superior Court. His lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Chris Ayers, said White acted in self-defense when he stabbed Greg Collins during a fight on Feb. 19.

Among the most threatening words for teen-agers on the streets of Wilmington are “Where are you from?”

Blanco faced that question when he went driving with three friends after a late-night party Feb. 7. Blanco, whom police describe as an East Side Wilmas (Wilmington) gang member, had just made a U-turn and stopped at the intersection of D Street and Wilmington Boulevard on the west side when half a dozen youths approached his car, police said.

A girl riding in the front seat recalled in a recent interview that she urged Blanco to drive off or defuse the situation by saying he was from “nowhere.”

Instead, Kallestad said, “he made a very dumb but very important statement--’East Side!’-- and that was all it took.

“They shot him.”

The girl, who declined to be named, took the wheel and sped toward Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, but Blanco died en route.

Blanco had been trying to move away from gang life, she said, by attending church and junior college classes, but he still could not resist an opportunity to tout his side of town. “I guess he thought he would have looked stupid in front of us,” the girl said. “I wish it would all just stop.”

Youths are initiated into gangs by surviving a beating at the hands of their friends, according to gang bangers, as the youths call themselves. Others may back their neighborhood in a fight, but will not look for trouble. And still others might be targeted by outsiders simply because they are on the street in a rival neighborhood.

Police said that was the case for Pereda, an east side youth who was shot and killed March 22 as he walked home from a nighttime meeting at Holy Family Catholic Church.

Pereda ran track at school and he liked to fight a little, his family said, but he was not a gang member.

Police agree. Homicide detectives said they believe Pereda was killed in retaliation for the shooting of a hard-core west side gang member four days earlier.

Can’t Find Real Foes

Gang members said they often cannot find their real foes on the street.

“There’s a lot of guys they hate,” said one teen-ager friendly with the West Side Wilmas, “but sometimes they can’t find them so they’ll blast anybody. The guys they want are never on the street. It’s always the innocent ones.”

Blanco’s and Pereda’s killers have not been found, but police believe they have solved the murder of Gama, the latest of the local boys to die this year.

Detectives said they raided three homes on the east side of town Thursday, arresting four teen-agers. Being held without bail on suspicion of murder are Jose Anguiano and Sergio Rubalcaba, both 18, along with two boys, ages 16 and 17.

Gama was one of many youths who defy the easy categories of gang member and non-gang member. He liked to hang out with his buddies, sometimes late at night in front of his house on Neptune Street.

“He would always say he wasn’t doing nothing for me to worry about,” said his mother, Juanita Gama. “But I think it worries any parent.

“If he was in a gang it was a gang within himself,” she said. “He did not like to go to school and he should have. I guess every kid worries a mother when they are restless.”

Police say they are also concerned about a rivalry between mostly Latino youths in Harbor City and those who live in Los Angeles city and county areas east of Torrance.

Detectives arrested two Harbor City young men as suspects in the Feb. 26 killing of Joseph Banzali, 23, who was shot as he made a U-turn in the Normandale Recreation Center parking lot in Los Angeles. Banzali, who had moved recently from the neighborhood to Van Nuys, was there visiting friends.

The district attorney’s office later released the two suspects, saying they lacked the evidence to charge them.

In recent interviews, three gang members from Harbor City acknowledged that there is bad blood with a gang called Eastside Torrance, but insisted their friends are not responsible for Banzali’s death.

Pulled Over 3 Youths

Nevertheless, several weeks after Banzali’s death, police said they pulled over three Eastside Torrance youths, who had a rifle and shotgun in their car. According to Detective Kallestad, one of the youths, Robert Monroy, said: “You didn’t get (the killers). We are (going to).”

Monroy, 18, faces trial in Long Beach Superior Court for conspiracy to commit murder. Kallestad said the other two riders were not charged with conspiracy because they did not make incriminating statements.

Monroy’s lawyer, Sebastian Ernandes, declined to comment.

John Northmore, supervisor of the Harbor City Teen Post, said gangs are one of the few places in the barrio in which young people feel needed.

“If I’m going to keep them out of the gangs, I am going to have to find something more exciting for them to do,” Northmore said. “There isn’t any other activity in town. They get a social life from the gangs. . . . Kids are just plain bored.”

Idleness breeds trouble, according to police, social workers and gang members.

“We will be kicking back at the park and say, ‘Why don’t we go to the east side or San Pedro and see what we find,’ ” said one West Side Wilmas gang member.

Police and gang members also agree that confrontations are more deadly because of the increasing use of guns and knives.

“We (used to) call it heart,” said former gang member James Davis. “You got your reputation by going toe to toe with someone. You wouldn’t shoot them or cut them.”

Davis counsels gang bangers for Toberman Settlement House, a social service agency in San Pedro.

Mando Ramos, a former two-time world lightweight boxing champion, has tried to channel the aggressions of harbor youths into a program called Boxing Against Alcohol and Drugs. “In those old days it was hitting and punching,” said Ramos, who grew up in Wilmington. “If you pulled a knife or a pipe they called you a sissy.”

No One Showed Up

Some of the older Wilmington home boys, as gang youths call themselves, tried to gather the east side and west side together earlier this year for a peace meeting, in which gang members would box and talk out their differences. But no one showed up at the predetermined time in Harbor Regional Park--considered neutral ground.

“Everybody doesn’t fight fair,” said one West Side Wilmas gang member. “They were probably thinking the same thing we were--that they would come with guns and knives.”

Young people in the harbor area said sweeps by Los Angeles police have had some impact. Some of the home boys who used to hang out until 2 a.m. at Wilmington Recreation Center said they now head for home early to avoid questioning by police.

But a Harbor City Peewee gang member known as Shadow disagreed: “They can come down here all they want. It doesn’t do anything.”

The Wilmington Homeowners Assn. supports the patrols and wants them expanded, President Peter Mendoza said. “I agree with (Los Angeles Police Chief) Daryl Gates,” Mendoza said. “This is a crisis. There are more people being killed in our communities than in some of those Third World countries that have police states.”

‘Psychological Warfare’

Some others, like Father Luis Valbuena of Holy Family Roman Catholic Church on the east side, disagree.

“I think (violence) has gotten worse since the police raids,” Valbuena said. “(Gang members) want to prove that they are still alive and that they can fight back. It is some kind of psychological warfare.”

Many social workers say the money spent on police would be better used for recreation, counseling and job programs.

“Getting chased by the police is maybe the last free recreational activity that the city provides,” Northmore said. “It sounds facetious but, really, these kids look forward to that.”

Shadow, already a gang veteran and ready for retirement at 20, expressed the conflicting emotions of gang life.

When he talks to children in the neighborhood about gang violence, Shadow tells them “that it don’t prove nothing. I tell them not to do it. It’s stupid.”

But, a minute later, he said: “I tell everybody I’m going to be a Peewee until I die.”

There is a new recklessness to gang violence in the harbor area, say gang members, police and gang counselors. There are more guns, more knives and a new attitude of abandon. Here is a rundown of the killings that police attribute to gang violence:

1. Jan. 1--Polish immigrant Eugeniusz Koss, 49, is murdered New Year’s night at Harbor Regional Park during a robbery attempt. An 18-year-old Carson gang member suspected of Koss’ murder is shot and killed by police a month later during a similar attack in Baldwin Park.

2. Jan. 7--Longshoreman Johnny Healy, 49, a San Pedro resident who liked to hang out in the streets, is killed. Angelo Regino, 18, a reputed Rancho San Pedro gang member, is charged in the killing. He pleads not guilty.

3. Feb. 1--Jaime Gama, 14, of Wilmington, is murdered just across the street from his home when a carload of youths believed to be gang members from east Wilmington fire two shots at Gama who is among a group hanging out on the west side. Police arrest four teen-agers in the killing.

4. Feb. 7--Jose Pepe (Peps) Blanco, an East Side Wilmas (Wilmington) gang member, is stopped by a group of youths while driving through the west side. Blanco, 17, is shot and killed after declaring his allegiance to his neighborhood. Police say the murder is retaliation for Gama’s death.

5. Feb. 19--Gregory Collins, 27, of Wilmington, is killed by Sean White, 21, a reputed Compton gang member, who faces trial for murder. Collins and White fight, and Collins is stabbed. White was defending himself, his lawyer says.

6. Feb. 26--Joseph Banzali, 23, of Van Nuys, takes a friend for a ride in his old neighborhood east of Torrance, where he offers a ride to two young men. A carload of gang members, believed to be from Harbor City, shoots at Banzali’s car as he makes a U-turn at the Normandale Recreation Center. Banzali is killed.

7. March 22--East Side Wilmas on March 18 strike back for Blanco’s death by shooting a hard-core west side gang member. He lives, but four days later, Rafael Pereda, 16, from east Wilmington, is shot and killed as he walks home from church. Police and gang members agree that Pereda had no gang affiliation. Police believe he was killed by west side gang members.

8. March 27--San Pedro and Carson gang members, relaxing in Peck Park, fight after exchanging insults. Robert Devoux, 24, of Carson is shot and killed. Family members insist that Devoux was not a gang member.

Source: Detectives in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Harbor Division.