A Mission for Peace

Thousands of volunteers from 150 religious and community groups fanned out through the streets of South Los Angeles on Saturday, urging gang members to honor a three-day Easter weekend truce in the city, where more than 244 people have been murdered this year--a 10% increase over the same period last year.

Wearing green ribbons and buttons, the volunteers circulated leaflets and buttonholed teen-agers, pleading with them to stop the killing. A team of parishioners from the Crenshaw Christian Center told shoppers strolling Vermont Avenue near 60th Street about the truce and urged one Inglewood youth, 12-year-old Elliot Forte, to spread the word among his friends.

“You tell ‘em to stop for awhile, you hear?” said parishioner Rosemary Green. “We’re losing all our young black men,” she said. “Yes ma’am,” the boy responded, saying he would tell his friends.

Despite their efforts, the mayhem continued. In the early morning hours Saturday, a man was shot in the head as he stood on a street near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, police said. The unidentified man was in critical condition Saturday at County-USC Medical Center.