Death of a Rapper : Rowland Heights Teens Form a Club in Memory of Their Slain Friend

I do not slang or gang-bang,

I just want fame and I like to sing.

And at that, I am the king.

I’m not like a black ace,

So don’t bring dope in my face.

--Lyrics by Aaron Vaughan’s rap group

Aaron Vaughan, 16, got the fame he and friends dreamed of for about 24 hours. But it wasn’t the kind he wanted.

Friends of the Rowland Heights youth will never forget the 11 o’clock newscast on Dec. 9. A gang member had shot and killed two teens at a party attended by hundreds of young people, the anchorman reported. One victim, he said, was an innocent bystander.

The next words angered Vaughan’s friends. They remember the anchorman saying that, “fortunately,” the other victim, Aaron Vaughan, belonged to a gang.

Within a day, the media spotlight was shining elsewhere, and Vaughan, defined only as a “reputed gang member,” was forgotten. But Vaughan’s friends don’t want “gang member” to be the last word on the youth.

That’s why they started the Aaron Memory Club. Its goal will be to keep neighborhood kids out of gangs. They say it’s what Vaughan would have wanted.

40 Have Signed Up

At their first meeting, club members scraped together $120 toward the Vaughan family’s funeral costs. The next project is a neighborhood-wide field trip to an amusement park.

Anyone can belong to this anti-gang gang. More than 40 area youths have signed up so far, and it isn’t just the rappers or the heavy metal fans or the student council. A Saturday afternoon meeting attracted whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians.

Some smoke, some drink, some admit to trying drugs, a few have served school suspensions, one or two have been arrested. But they all have plans. Computer technician, policeman, restaurateur--their goals do not include gang membership.

For them, Vaughan’s death was a dose of reality, the familiar vignette of gang violence being played on fresh ground, their ground. Gang members or not, they were no longer immune.

“The only group Aaron belonged to is his rappin’ group,” said Lamont Colquitt, 17. “Just friends making music.”

Lamont pulled out a cassette and stuck it in the tape player of a friend’s pick-up. On top of the crude percussion arrangement came Aaron’s own words:

I see people on the corner out there slanging. (selling drugs)

And some people just gang-banging . . .

Drugs don’t bring you fame, but shame.

And to people that use it, it ain’t no game.

Like the other teens who listened, Colquitt wore a custom-made sweat shirt. Some shirts read “In Memory of L’il Ghost”; the others said “In Memory of Kid Poetry.” L’il Ghost because Vaughan was so dark-skinned. Kid Poetry because he rapped with style.

The sweat shirts were black and white. No blue or red. That’s because Vaughan is dead because of a red Santa Claus hat.

Tiras McDonald, 17, said he and Vaughan bought the red hats with the white cotton ball tips the week before the shooting. Vaughan wore both the hat and a green jacket that Friday. Green and red, the colors of Christmas. They didn’t remember that to a gang member wearing blue, the color red was worth killing over.

“Nothing could bring his spirits down that day,” Aaron’s older brother, Troy, recalled. At one point, Aaron collared his grandmother, brother and cousin in succession, playfully saying, “I love you.”

“It was not unusual for him to say that,” said Sweetie Lemons, his grandmother.

After school that afternoon, “he told me he had a present for my baby,” Colquitt said. “Some baby clothes.”

Before Vaughan left for the party, he devoured three platefuls of Lemons’ lasagna and promised to get home early enough for more.

“I dropped him off at the party,” said Mike Mattox, 17, who saw Vaughan and McDonald walking near a local Taco Bell.

Vaughan “was all kick-back and said, ‘See you tomorrow,’ ” Mattox said.

Just hours before, Troy Vaughan had told his younger brother about the party. Vaughan had made a last-minute decision to go.

The other shooting victim, Christopher William Baker, ended up at the Annadel Avenue party only because a ballgame he wanted to watch turned out to be on Saturday rather than Friday. The 18-year-old Rowland Heights High School graduate was a joiner in the good sense of the word, say his parents. He’d been in the school choir. His friends had a band, and he’d set up their equipment for them at gigs.

The only son of Larry and Sandy Baker was handy that way. Just the other day, his mother said, he fixed a Weed Eater for her.

Baker worked at Robinson’s, and had just opted for college over the Air Force.

Vaughan’s friends said Baker sometimes liked to hang out with tough people to avoid getting hassled, but he “never did anything to get people mad at him.”

Baker introduced Vaughan’s rap group at a school talent show last year.

But it was just chance that found the white teen-ager standing near the black youth when four gang members in the crowd of more than 400 approached McDonald.

“What’s up, cuz?” one of them asked.

McDonald recognized the challenge. “I don’t bang,” he said.

“What’s with the red hat?”

Vaughan stepped over to deny he and McDonald were claiming colors. “I don’t bang,” Vaughan also told the gang member.

A fight almost began when a gang member grabbed a crutch from someone, and Vaughan snared the other crutch.

But both put down the crutches and Vaughan and McDonald started moving away. They got about 10 feet. It isn’t clear if Vaughan saw the small caliber, semiautomatic handgun come out.

McDonald thinks that the first of four shots hit Vaughan. And the third or fourth struck Baker. The gunman fled and remains at large.

“I got hit,” Vaughan said, and laughed. Then he ran halfway across the yard and fell, and died. Baker died soon after being brought to a West Covina hospital.

“He had his life ahead of him,” said Baker’s aunt, Frances Baker. “He never even had a girlfriend.”

As for Vaughan, friends and family say he wanted to finish school. He talked of marrying his girlfriend and joining the Navy. He dreamed of being a famous rapper.

Invitation to Trouble

Frances Baker and other area residents said the party itself, publicized by flyers, was an invitation to trouble. Like Chris Baker’s parents, she wants something done about yard parties whose low admission prices, beer and dancing attract hundreds of teens. They want authorities to step in before someone else dies.

The Aaron Memory Club also wants change. But members said neighborhood parties grew out of a need for inexpensive entertainment, where teen-agers were free to enjoy themselves. They want to sponsor supervised parties and field trips.

What’s at stake is more than just a good time. They said area kids need something to do if adults expect them to stay out of gangs.

“We were aware that there were problems in our community,” Sandy Baker said. “Of course, we never expected it to hit so close to home.”

“It’s getting worse,” Colquitt said of the gang infiltration, but he doesn’t believe it’s too late to prevent gangs from taking root. “We know we can end this in Rowland Heights.”

Vaughan’s own lyrics had sounded a similar message of warning--and hope.

I’m only 16, I have a long time to live.

If I see a bum, I won’t take I’ll give.

So don’t sell drugs, or get involved.

You have a roof over you,

So say Thank God.