200 Parents, Students Assail Spur Posse in Lakewood

Saying they have been bullied for too long by the Spur Posse, about 200 parents and students packed a Lakewood community center Monday to condemn the band of mostly teen-age boys accused of raping or molesting girls.

“People are upset. People are angry. I just wish they would have gotten angry a long time ago,” said a former Lakewood High School student who said a member of the Spur Posse raped her more than a year ago.

“Here I am, a year later and things are not back to normal for me,” she said, adding that she transferred to a new high school after the attack, which was never prosecuted because of a lack of evidence.

“My life was turned upside-down. The boys aren’t just having sex. They’re forcing the girls,” she said.

The meeting, organized by a parent to discuss the safety of students at Lakewood High School, became a forum for one faction in the widely publicized sex scandal.

Notably absent were any members of the Spur Posse, a band of current or former Lakewood High School students--whose members acknowledge that they competed for “points” in a long-running game of sexual conquests.

“I’m sure my boys are no angels, but these girls are no angels either,” said Roger Hurst, the step-father of one of the Spur Posse’s founding members. Hurst said his stepson--who was not charged-- could not speak for himself because he had gone to New York with several other members of the group “to do the talk show routine.”

In a scandal that has torn apart the middle-class suburb of Lakewood, nine members of the Spur Posse were arrested March 18 on suspicion of raping or molesting at least seven girls, the youngest only 10 years old at the time of the alleged attack.

Initially, sheriff’s investigators sought 17 felony counts against the teen-agers, all based on alleged incidents last fall. But in a turn of events that angered some parents, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office declined to file charges against four youths, concluding that the sexual encounters had occurred with the consent of the girls.

At the same time, the district attorney’s office demanded additional evidence against four other teen-agers who were released from jail. Only one teen-ager awaits trial on a single felony count of lewd conduct with a minor under age 14, a district attorney’s spokeswoman said.

The return to Lakewood High School classrooms by at least four of the Spurs last week drew sharply divided reaction among parents and students. Many classmates gave the Spurs a heroes’ welcome, saying publicity over the case was overblown. Others expressed fear of attending school with the Spurs.

It was that faction that said Monday night that the clique had terrorized the community, picking fights with male classmates and raping and threatening female students in a pattern that has escalated since the arrests.

“My 15-year-old daughter was walking to school two or three weeks ago and was threatened with her life,” said LeRoy Stark, a construction worker who said he had grown up in the southeast area suburb.

“They said they’d shoot her because they did not like the person she was walking with,” Stark said.