Growing Pains and a Goodby

It wasn’t supposed to happen here.

In the Antelope Valley, gang shootings were something you read about in the newspapers. On the evening news you watched coroner’s deputies grimly mopping up the streets of Los Angeles, wheeling away victims under the glare of television lights.

It wasn’t supposed to happen in this suburban haven, a stucco oasis surrounded by sagebrush and Joshua trees.

But last week, as he left a party, 18-year-old Christopher Sanford died in a flash of gunfire, victim of the first gang-related slaying in the Antelope Valley.

Sanford was not a gang member. He hated gangs. He was the likable and talented goalie of the Antelope Valley High School soccer team, best known for his constant jokes and a booming voice that could be heard by teammates 100 yards downfield.

One of his favorite commands was direct and effective: “Kick the ball in the goal!”

At the school stadium in Lancaster where he once played with inspiring abandon--the “Home of the Antelopes”--hundreds of his friends, classmates and teachers gathered Friday to celebrate his life and to mourn his death.

“In a way,” said his friend Kevin Branch, “that bullet struck each of us.”

Branch was one of 13 speakers who addressed a packed stadium from a small stage erected near the sidelines. An empty goal formed the backdrop.

From the lectern hung a large color photograph of Sanford, a slender youth with blue eyes and brown hair. He smiled confidently, not shy about the thin wire retainer that crossed his teeth.

Friends said he was the kind of guy who razzed and poked fun at people. But he was so good-natured you couldn’t stay mad at him. In fact, you loved him for it.

Branch, thinking of Sanford carrying on in heaven, said: “I’m sure it’s a hell of a lot more fun up there now that he’s up there.”

Sanford died Jan. 6. He was hit in the right eye by a stray bullet after a confrontation erupted between gang members at a crowded party. There have been no arrests in the killing.

While Sanford was on his deathbed at the hospital, his friend Jeff Bishop came to say goodby. Bishop, who recounted the scene for the crowd Friday, said he held Sanford’s hand. The hand was still warm but the pallor of death was spreading over his friend’s face.

A senior, Bishop was not eager to graduate and leave behind what he called the “amateur lives” high school students lead. “I’ve been afraid to grow up,” he said.

But Sanford’s death changed all that. He’s learned there’s pain in life, as well as joy, and that friends will help relieve the pain when it inevitably comes. He’s shared many tears with his buddies.

“Since this accident, I’m not afraid to grow up now. I’m not afraid to cry,” he said. “I’m not afraid to tell people, ‘I love you.’ ”

A baseball player, Bishop held up his bright red letterman jacket--the same kind Sanford wore the night he was shot. On the back, embroidered in black thread, it said: “This One’s For Chris.”

Said another of Sanford’s soccer teammates, Brian Erwell: “I’ve done a lot of growing this week.”

Addressing the vanished friend who helped him on the field and off, a pal he could talk to about girls and parents and school, he asked: “How can I thank you, Chris? God knows I love you.”

Last year there were 570 gang-related killings in Los Angeles County, a record. Authorities estimate there are about 600 gangs with 70,000 members--enough to populate a good-sized city.

Gang members do exist in the Antelope Valley--maybe 400 of them--authorities say, but the valley has not become the killing ground the central city has. Police believe Sanford’s killers came from the San Fernando Valley.

Still, the high desert is no longer the same.

Like a quick desert storm, gang violence “crashed into our valley the other night,” said Charles Keortge, a Spanish teacher. It seems the valley, like Sanford’s boyhood friends, is being forced to grow up.

Keortge noted the dead grass on the athletic field and a row of trees in the distance, their branches stripped of leaves by winter. They were emblems of the school’s sorrow, he said, but they will grow again. “Be assured that spring will come, watered by the tears we shed for Chris,” he said.

As the memorial service concluded, students milled about, many hugging each other. Many cried. Teachers did too.

At the empty goal, a group of about 30 students formed and faced the empty net, turning the goal Sanford had tended so diligently into an altar. They prayed.

It was time to return to class. Students and teachers drifted back to the main campus. Two teachers talked.

“It turned out really nice,” one said. “It was very uplifting.” She sighed. “Well, I have to go teach a biology class.” She walked off.

Just three hours after the memorial service, the soccer team, which dedicated the rest of the season to Sanford’s memory, faced rival Quartz Hill.

They played their hearts out, winning 5-1.

Now they’re in first place.

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