Shooting Sparks Call for Churches to Act Against ‘Fratricide’

The leader of a ministers’ group told about 75 other clergy members Monday that the shooting in a Southeast Los Angeles church last week that left two people dead and another hospitalized should serve notice that more churches must become involved in the fight against gang warfare and other violence in the black community.

The Rev. Frank J. Higgins, president of the 400-member Baptist Ministers Conference of Los Angeles and Southern California, said Friday night’s shooting at Mt. Olive Church of God in Christ by a shotgun wielding man clad in black was “an isolated incident” that does not represent an organized assault on churches in general. But, he said, it was “an indication we cannot stand idly by and say nothing” about an “unnatural” cycle of violence among blacks that “amounts to fratricide.”

Many Have Hired Guards

Higgins said many churches have hired security guards, installed alarm systems and put metal bars on windows to protect themselves from increased crime in their neighborhoods.

Higgins, who presided Monday afternoon over a weekly meeting of the ministers’ group at Greater Cornerstone Baptist Church on Figueroa Street, urged his colleagues to participate in what is expected to be a massive “take back our streets” campaign in South-Central Los Angeles in August and September.

The campaign, sponsored by the Brotherhood Crusade, a minority community services organization, is to kick off Aug. 5 with a rally for any “concerned and stouthearted black men who have, heretofore, been silent,” Higgins said. One thousand of those men will be asked to fan out over a 110-block area to beautify it, to counsel and tutor young people, to talk to gang members and to provide security patrols for 60 days.

$1,000 for Reward Fund

The ministers’ group Monday pledged at least $1,000 to a reward fund set up for the capture of the Mt. Olive church gunman. It also voted to ask the City Council and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to boost the reward fund to $25,000. Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) has already pledged $5,000 to the fund.

Long before Friday’s shooting, churches in neighborhoods with gang violence and other rampant crime had seen the need to employ tough security measures.

Several pastors and church officers interviewed Monday said that for years they have been hiring armed guards for their parking lots and have had to keep church doors locked during the week. Often, deacons or other congregation members are part of a security staff that patrols the church grounds during a service, communicating with walkie-talkies.

Even at Mt. Olive, a church official usually maintained a post outside the stucco building as a sort of lookout. But there was little the unarmed man could do Friday night when the masked gunman fired at him, then stalked into the church, killing two women and wounding the husband of one of the women.

An employee at the church, who did not want to be identified, said there are plans to post an armed guard at every service, a practice that until now was used only sporadically at Mt. Olive.

“It’s sad to see violence and murder at any level, but when it gets so bold as to take place in a (gathering) of Christians, well, the lack of reverence emerging in the community is really frightening,” said the Rev. Dumas Harshaw, pastor of another area church, Trinity Baptist. “You can’t completely secure a church because it has an open-door policy. . . . Ultimately, we can only look to God.”

Trinity Baptist started posting security guards in its parking lot several years ago after parishioners’ cars were tampered with, Harshaw said. Guards are occasionally armed, he added, though there have been no serious incidents.

At Second Baptist Church, about five blocks from Mt. Olive, deacons for the last five years have been going on patrol during services, alerted to watch for intruders. More recently, church officials felt it necessary to lock the doors during the week, and video cameras have been installed at doors to monitor visitors, administrative assistant Gerald Adams said.

From 1985 through 1987, at least three unrelated incidents at churches in Chinatown, Watts and La Puente were reported in which five leaders or members of the congregation were shot to death.

Meanwhile, police investigating the Mt. Olive shooting continued to report little progress. No arrests have been made, and no motive for the attack has been announced.

Killed were Mae Lee, 76, and Patronella Luke, 35. Luke’s husband, Peter, 33, is recovering from a gunshot wound in the leg.