Surge of Violence by Gangs Breaks Calm at Housing Project

With blackberry eyes and a red ribbon on her gleaming black hair, 4-year-old Lilly Valencia hid shyly behind her father as he talked with neighbors in the Wyvernwood Garden Apartments near Boyle Heights.

Jose Valencia, a clothing salesman, said he moved into the enormous complex a month ago because he thought its grassy mall would be a good place for Lilly to play. Now he is so terrified he will not let her outdoors alone.

Gang violence has recently invaded what residents and police said was previously a pacific environment, a place where relaxed nights were passed among friends playing soccer or listening to the radio and where--if truth be known--the wilder of the young would go off at times to spray-paint city buses.

3 Gangs Shoot It Out

Monday night, lawbreaking went far beyond petty crime as three gang factions--all living in the complex--shot it out in the first gang shootings there that police can remember.

Eliazar Medina, 15, died and three other youths were injured, one critically. Blood still stained the entrance of one building Tuesday morning; 11 bullet holes pocked the walls. And the survivors told a frightening story reminiscent more of Beirut than Boyle Heights, which police call one of the calmer areas of the city.

Police arrested two youths on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, but Valencia, who has been keeping Lilly inside ever since he arrived, said he intends to find a new place to live.

“If I move in because of the place for the kids and they can’t go out, I should move out,” said the 35-year-old father of four. Valencia said he knew of three shooting episodes in the month since he moved in.

Residents, police and the apartment manager said the outbreak of violence is a departure from years of relative peace at the complex, a sprawling group of 130 two-story buildings housing 1,100 units near the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Lorena Street.

“The (Wyvernwood) problems are brand new,” said Capt. Arthur Lopez, the commanding officer of the Hollenbeck Division for 3 1/2 years. “We have not had any shootings there for as long as I can remember. The private company that owns it and certainly the manager have done a tremendous job of trying to keep up the neighborhood and keeping crime out.”

Sharp Cracking Noises

On Monday night about 9 p.m., a group of 12 to 15 youths were standing near one of the apartment buildings listening to rap music when a series of sharp cracking noises came from across the mall.

“We thought people were throwing firecrackers,” said Danny Ortega, a youth who said he was there. Suddenly, the group realized the noises were shots. “Everybody hit the ground.”

Det. Robert Suter, the Hollenbeck homicide coordinator, said the first shots missed their target. “The kid they missed runs to a house and gets a .22 automatic and returns,” he said. “The group that has fired has left the location. They fire on another group and hit four of them.” The three youths remain hospitalized, according to police, who would not say what touched off the gun battle.

Suter said police arrested a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old, both from the complex, and detained them as juveniles on suspicion of one count of murder and three counts of attempted murder.

The heavily Latino complex has had gangs for 25 years, but until recently, said Sgt. Bob Normandy, day watch commander at Hollenbeck, “they have been very, very inactive.”

In 1986, police presented Jose Arvala, manager of the complex, with a certificate of appreciation for his anti-crime efforts, which included organizing neighborhood watch programs and rapid reporting of incidents.

Within the last year, tenants and police said, new kids moving in from neighborhoods where gangs are more violent brought a dangerous edge to tensions.

‘Started Getting Crazy’

“It started getting crazy,” said David Jimenez, 18, a Rio Hondo Community College student who lives at the complex.

In evenings on the expansive mall “two years ago, it used to be soccer,” Jimenez said. “Some crews (would) go write up the buses (with graffiti). Now everyone is going in early because they don’t want to get shot.”

In the aftermath, Arvala said he will increase security and attempt to reinvigorate the neighborhood watch program. “Without the community efforts, I don’t think we are going to be able to do anything,” he said.

Lopez said Wyvernwood will get additional police attention. “It is one of our tactics . . . after shootings of this sort,” he said.

And as for the bullet holes, Arvala said, “we are already working on that.”