GANG WATCH : Heartless or Heartsick?

New York is supposed to be the ultimate example of the impersonal, hard-hearted big city, the place where pedestrians hustle past the homeless, and screams for help are met with shut windows.

But New York’s anguished reaction to a recent spate of shooting deaths of children is healthier, and more humane, than the numbed--and some would even say blase--reaction Southern California has shown to the relentless drive-by murders of children here for the past several years.

Various excuses are put forth for Southern California’s muted response.

1. We are geographically separated. Does that assume a commuter who drives 40 miles from Costa Mesa to downtown Los Angeles is supposed to care less about a child shot a few miles from his job than one killed a few miles from his home?

2. Southern California lacks the screaming headlines of tabloid newspapers. True, but what we lack in tabloids we more than make up for in local television news.

3. New York had a concentration of four murders in a short time to spark the city’s fury. A roundup of weekend crime stories in Southern California typically reports at least three gang-related shootings. Quite a few result in the deaths of children.

Genuine widespread outrage about gang-related violence hit Los Angeles once--when a young professional woman was the victim of a bullet in Westwood. But most victims of gang-related violence aren’t professionals--and don’t die in Westwood.

And now it looks as if we’re running out of excuses.