Well, That’s Skid Row : 2 Homicides Within 2 Hours Draw Little Attention

Like the people living in Los Angeles’ gang-infested neighborhoods, those who make their homes on downtown’s Skid Row have slowly and tragically become inured to street violence.

On Tuesday morning, the brutal slayings of two people within two blocks of each other the night before drew far less attention than the taping of an episode of the television show, “Beauty and the Beast.”

“It’s always the same,” said Randy Blankenship, 25, a wheelchair-bound man who heard the ambulances and police sirens wailing but thought nothing more of it. “That’s street life.”

The first killing occurred at the northeast corner of 4th and Main streets at about 7:30 p.m. Monday when a man in his 40s was beaten and stabbed by four men who ran away. The man was taken to L.A. County-USC Medical Center, where he died of the stab wounds, Los Angeles police said.

The second death came two hours later when a woman in her 30s was shot while standing near a ceramic figurine shop in the 200 block of East Winston Street, police said. Her attacker was described as a lone man with a gun. She also died at County-USC Medical Center.

Los Angeles Police Lt. Louis Trovato of the Central Division said police heard about the second slaying while they were still on the scene of the first. Trovato called the twin murders a “coincidence” but said such violence is not uncommon on Skid Row.

The two murders brought to 38 the numbers of homicides reported in the Central Division so far this year.

“It’s just one of those unfortunate things that happens,” Trovato said.

That same spirit prevailed the morning after on the garbage- and graffiti-strewn Skid Row streets where Elton Thomas has operated Tommy’s Shoeshine for 18 years. “I don’t pay it no attention,” Thomas said of the violence. “Every now and then we have a little feud here, but it’s nothing that serious.”

Transients became especially vulnerable to attack in the mid-1970s when the so-called “Skid Row Slasher” was blamed for 11 murders. Skid Row workers blame the latest surge of violence, which started a couple of years ago, on drugs.

Clancy Imislund, director of the Midnight Mission on Los Angeles Street, said most transients accept that violence comes with the turf. “People don’t talk about it much more,” he said. “It’s been said that no man is an island, but every man is an island here. I’ve talked to 20 people today, and no one has mentioned the two murders.”

On East Winston Street, just a block from where the second murder occurred, two groups of transients huddled on separate sides of the street. They said they have become more cautious at night, especially in choosing where they sleep. One man even said that he and a friend take turns looking out for each other. “He’s my spotter,” the transient said.