Mothers Turn In Their Sons’ Guns : Gangs: Disarmament campaign opens in an effort to end warfare in an East Los Angeles neighborhood.

Father Gregory Boyle called it a parent’s “supreme act of love.”

In a gesture with deeply religious undertones Friday night, East Los Angeles mothers of Latino and black youths began a campaign to turn over the rifles and pistols they had confiscated from their gang-member sons.

“This is trash,” Juana Lopez, 47, yelled in Spanish as she deposited a rifle and a 22-millimeter handgun in a garbage can during a ceremony at the Pico Gardens Housing Projects. “We mothers know where the weapons are. If we all stick together, we can disarm this community.”

Lopez said she took one gun from her 20-year-old son. Only a handful of firearms were handed over to Boyle, but church and community leaders said they hope to inspire other parents to turn in weapons that transform the East Los Angeles neighborhood into a battleground.

At least 11 gangs operate in the neighborhood of the Pico Gardens and Aliso Village Gardens housing projects, residents said. Gunfights between rivals led to four deaths this summer, church officials said.

“The greatest symbol of love is to have mothers disarm their sons and say ‘We don’t want to bury anymore kids,’ ” Boyle said. “This is not a sign that we’re opposed to gangs. We want to work with them. But we also want to re-establish the authority of the parents in the community.”

Boyle said parents who find weapons in their homes are faced with a dilemma--they know the guns are likely used in “gang banging,” but they are afraid their sons might be jailed if they turn the weapons over to the authorities.

One 50-year-old woman who asked not to be identified said she secretly held onto the gun she found among the clothes of her teen-age son for more than a year.

“I felt in my heart very sad and very afraid,” she said in Spanish. “One day (a gang) attacked my house. Then the police came to investigate and I was afraid they would find the gun.”

Eventually she gave the gun to Boyle. “I feel like a different person,” she said. “I feel at peace with myself. I’m not afraid of anything. I give thanks to God a thousand times.”

As a reminder of the human toll of the violence, two teen-agers addressed the ceremony from their wheelchairs. The teens, both members of competing black and Latino gangs, were recently left paralyzed after drive-by shootings.

After sharing a hospital room, Rogelio Lopez and Eddie Jones said they have set aside their differences. “(The gangs) are just wiping each other out,” said Lopez, 19. “They don’t know what life is about. It ain’t worth it being in a gang.”

Jones, 17, added: “You have to stop shooting the guns back and forth because one of the people could be your little brother. I was a gang banger. I hope you learn your lesson. I learned mine.”

After the speeches, about 300 people carrying candles marched along Gless Street. Jones and Lopez led the procession.

A few women began to sing a hymn in Spanish: “Not with force, not with violence, that is not how the world will change. . . . Only love can save us.”

Boyle said that before Friday’s rally, parents had given him seven weapons. He said he turned them over to police--but without providing details about the owners. In some instances, church workers take the weapons apart. One rifle barrel was made into a candlestick.

Several police officers attended the ceremony. Sgt. Carl Kennerson declined comment, except to say: “If it stops one shooting, it’s positive.”