Gang Truce Offers No Letup in Random Street Violence : Crime: Police say hoodlums have turned aggression on citizens. Activists vow to hold protests until killing stops.

Kimberly M. Horton, 21, died because someone wanted her car.

Horton, a UCLA student with an ear for foreign languages and a dream of international travel, was shot last month, pulled from her 1991 Honda Accord and left to die on an Inglewood street while the gunman drove off with her car.

Although the post-riot truce between the Crips and Bloods has resulted in a dramatic reduction of gang killings in South-Central Los Angeles and surrounding communities, random violence of the type that claimed Horton’s life continues unabated, with a numbing string of murders in recent weeks. And many law enforcement officials believe there is a connection between the two.

“It’s not as if the truce means that the gang members have found God or suddenly seen the light,” said South Bureau Homicide Detective Jerry Johnson. “They are just as violent, but they have shifted their activities away from each other and toward the community.”

Horton’s death is one grim case in a spate of killings in the last few weeks in gang-plagued neighborhoods. Among the victims were:

* Richard Lee Carol, a florist, who was shot and killed July 26 after he asked four men outside his Inglewood home who were causing a disturbance to quiet down.

* Anita G. Robertson, 30, who was killed July 31 while her children watched as the family waited in its van at a Jack-in-the-Box drive-through in Watts. The gunman leaned into the car, demanded Robertson’s purse and then shot her to death when she resisted.

* Gladys Grantz, 94, of Lynwood was killed Aug. 15 when two men in a car tried to snatch her purse. One man grabbed the purse as Grantz was walking from her bank. She was dragged 150 feet until the strap broke and she hit her head on the pavement, still clutching the purse.

While the easing of tensions between the Crips and Bloods has stemmed the warfare between black gangs, there has been no similar reduction of hostilities among Latino gangs. And there has been no letup in drug dealing and street crimes, particularly robberies of people pumping gasoline, in fast-food restaurants and at automated teller machines, police say.

Despite a nearly 50% reduction compared to the same period last year, there were 85 drive-by shootings in the South Bureau in the six weeks after the riots, police officials said. While homicides have declined since the riots, they are up 6% over the first seven months of last year, from 209 in 1991 to 222 in 1992.

In addition, scores of nonfatal robberies and assaults have scarred communities and altered the daily routine of people’s lives.

“We still have a long way to go,” said LAPD spokesman Lt. John Dunkin. “The department supports the truce and we hope it spreads and has a lasting impact on crime. The real victims are the people who can’t walk to the store, children who can’t play in the parks or have to sleep on the floor because they fear drive-by shootings.”

Community activists worry that the truce offers a dangerous flip side, giving gangs the opportunity to move freely over larger territories without regard to traditional boundaries that normally held them in check. Police feel an added burden because before the truce they were able to isolate gang members who committed crimes by neighborhood “set.”

“In a perverse way, gangs created their own sense of order,” said Rod Wright, a community activist. “The breakdown of gang-enforced boundaries means that they can go wherever they want to. The next step in the truce is to resolve the issue of crime with jobs.”

Along Central Avenue and 103rd Street, scores of men point to the lack of jobs as a reason why crime is so high.

“There are a lot of people looking to get paid and there are no jobs around,” said Terry, an unemployed 21-year-old. “They don’t really care if someone gets hurt or not because they don’t care about what happens to them. If a guy with a gun doesn’t care about himself, then he sure won’t care about you.”

Those living in or near South-Central Los Angeles are victimized the most because they are closest to the source of frustration, said Joseph White, a psychologist at UC Irvine.

“When there is . . . free-floating anger, it comes out on the people closest to you,” he said. “Whether you are black or white, the highest point of danger is in the neighborhood or home. No one is going to get into a car and drive to Newport Beach to express their anger.”

It is that same fear of crime that has led some who live and work in gang-plagued areas to move out of the city.

“My husband and I were considering moving out of Los Angeles, but where would we go,” said Aisha Banks, 39, who owns a balloon and party supply business. “Violence seems to always get closer and closer. There was a time when there weren’t that many people I knew who had been victimized by crime. Now, practically everyone you meet, people in the family, close friends.”

But others have chosen to stay and fight. A growing number of community leaders and residents have vowed to hold protests at sites of violent deaths until the killing stops.

“Enough is enough,” said the Rev. Norman Johnson, a board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles. “We can’t just let something like this happen in our community without some response.”

Johnson led 80 people in a candlelight prayer vigil Aug. 8 at the fast-food restaurant where Robertson was killed. A week earlier, about 200 people gathered at another vigil sponsored by the SCLC at 80th Street and Crenshaw Boulevard where Horton, the daughter of a minister and SCLC board member, was attacked. The SCLC held another vigil at Vermont Avenue and Imperial Highway at the site where two teen-agers were killed July 6 in a drive-by shooting.

A weekend vigil was planned for Lamoun Thames, 15, who was stabbed to death Aug. 5 by youths who mistook him for a rival gang member. Thames, whose mother sent him to high school in Woodland Hills to escape inner-city violence, was attacked while waiting for a bus to take him to his home in South-Central Los Angeles.

The Rev. J. M. Lawson, 63, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the SCLC, said the nonviolent vigils featuring song and prayer will raise awareness about the extent of the violence in the community and show strength through numbers.

“We have to get moving to create change,” he said. “The best way to honor the dead and create change is to reach our hands out, block to block, family to family, community to community, from Los Angeles to Pomona to Van Nuys and Inglewood.”

Kimberly Horton’s father, the Rev. Richard Horton, helped organize the vigil that catalyzed the community protests. Although it has helped raise awareness about the murders, it has not helped quell his anger or provide any answers.

“I could call them animals, but animals kill for a reason,” Horton said. “This was not an animal, this was something dehumanized, heartless and cold.

“She had so much potential. She was fluent in French and studying Japanese. She was planning to go to Japan or Quebec, she hadn’t quite made up her mind.”

Ruth Horton, Kimberly’s mother, recalls the last time she saw her daughter alive. “She was having a deep philosophical discussion with her friends about religion or the quality of life when I walked into the room and kissed her goodby,” she said. “I never thought it would be the last time I would see her alive.”

Shortly after Kimberly Horton was shot, her car was picked up in Pomona. Police arrested a suspect but he was released because of insufficient evidence.

The suspect in the slaying of Anita Robertson turned himself in to police after her husband, Steve, went directly to local gang members and sought leads on the killing. Within a few hours Robertson had the name of a suspect, and within a few days he persuaded the man, Shawn Paul Johnson, to turn himself in. Police are seeking a second suspect, Lloyd Martin, 21.

Even the gang members “were disgusted about what happened to my wife. There was no excuse for it. These brothers out here are trying to hold the line on violence,” Robertson said, referring to the truce. “But on the streets some people are just out here to survive.”

Among the silent protesters at Robertson’s vigil was Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who this month sponsored a $25,000 reward for the capture of those responsible for the killing.

“This senseless and cruel murder of a mother in front of her children represents one of the worst manifestations of violence we see in our communities too often,” said Ridley-Thomas.

The vigils also allow the community to grieve for fallen residents and offer support to distraught family members.

“People have showered us with respect,” said Robertson. “It has been difficult, but we accept what happened, and now I plan to focus on my children.”

For 11-year-old Steve Jr. the pain of witnessing his mother’s death is still fresh. “It still hurts, bad, but as long as I have my dad by my side and my family I’ll be OK,” he said.

“I just hope the killing will stop.”

Random Victims

The deaths of these two women catalyzed public protest against the rash of killings in South-Central Los Angeles. Kimberly M. Horton, 21: Shot shortly before midnight July 25 in Inglewood, as she waited in her car at a stoplight. The gunman, who wanted her 1991 Honda Accord, pulled Horton out and drove off, leaving her on the street. She died four days later at a hospital.

Anita G. Robertson, 30: Murdered in front of her children at a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant in Watts. At the drive-through counter, a man leaned into the window of her van, demanded her purse and shot her in the chest when she refused to surrender it. She staggered out, collapsed and died in the parking lot.