Evidence Against Mother Ridiculed

The attorney for a South Los Angeles woman who was arrested on charges that she failed in her duties as a mother by allowing her 15-year-old son to participate in a street gang said Tuesday that his client had no knowledge of her son’s gang affiliation and called evidence against her “ridiculous.”

Daye Shinn said photo albums seized from the home of his client, 37-year-old Gloria Williams, which contain pictures of the woman with suspected gang members, do not prove that she condoned her son’s gang activity, as alleged by the city attorney’s office.

The photos also show Williams’ children brandishing pistols and making what appear to be gang hand signs. Police said the bedroom walls of Williams’ home were covered with graffiti, and that interviews with the woman revealed her failure to try to stop her son’s gang participation.

In a telephone interview, Shinn said, “The evidence is ridiculous. Those pictures were taken at one of her son’s parties and the boys were not in a gang. All those signs and graffiti was a bunch of kids’ stuff. The weapons in those pictures are just water guns.”

In the first use of the state’s new parental responsibility law, Williams’ has been accused of “failure to exercise reasonable care, supervision, protection and control” of her teen-age son. The boy, who is in custody at Eastlake Juvenile Detention Center, is suspected of participating in the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl.

Williams, who faces up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine, was released on $20,000 bail and is to be arraigned in two weeks.