LEIMERT PARK : Mothers Put a Face on Gunfire’s Toll

“This is my son.”

As Margaret Ensley held aloft a gilt-framed photo of a smiling teen-ager in a blue graduation cap and gown, her voice clear but edged with grief, the packed auditorium fell eerily silent.

The nearly 500 students at Audubon Middle School, who had been attentive throughout Ensley’s 30-minute address, absorbed its full impact as they studied the picture of 17-year-old Michael Ensley, gunned down in February by a classmate he barely knew, someone who said he didn’t like the way Michael was looking at him.

Ensley went on to say how her son would never graduate, never have a job, never become anything. It was a sobering but stirring conclusion to a story that kept a normally restless crowd still.

“You think violent acts will never happen to you because you’re young,” said Ensley, 46, a co-founder of Mothers Against Violence in Schools, after her address. “But that’s wrong. Young people have got to arm themselves with information. We all have to recognize we’re vulnerable.”

Ensley, an accounts manager for AT & T, established Mothers Against Violence in Schools with Mildred Hilliard, whose 16-year-old son, Demetrius Rice, was killed at Fairfax High School less than a year ago after an accidental shot passed through one victim and hit him. So far, the two women are the only members of an organization which, sadly, will probably grow.

Although both commit time to getting the word against violence and apathy to students in Los Angeles schools, it is Ensley who has made it a crusade and who stood center stage at Audubon one day recently, her voice filling the room like a preacher’s. Putting a face on violent acts, Ensley said, hits home with youths who have been desensitized to violence through the mass media that reel off statistics or print countless newspaper stories of gun-related deaths.

After Ensley’s address at Audubon, one student stood and described having to face the threat of gang violence daily as she walked to her grandmother’s home. Another student expressed her sympathy for Ensley, as well as a persistent fear that the same tragedy might strike her or a friend.

Eighth-grader Kenneth Vasher, who like many others knew the 15-year-old Audubon student who killed Rice, was moved by the women’s stories. “I can tell by looking across the room that a lot of people were affected today,” he said.

In addition to visiting campuses, Ensley and Hilliard have begun lobbying in Sacramento for bills to improve school security. And they are establishing a memorial foundation for their sons, which will fund scholarships and pay for metal detectors and other security measures at schools.

The organization is also sponsoring a districtwide essay contest, asking students to explain how they can have a hand in stopping violence. (Entries must be mailed by Jan. 14 to MAVIS, Box 44197, Los Angeles, 990044-0197. First- and second-place entries will receive $350 and $200, respectively.)

Hilliard, a state Employment Development Department worker, said she and Ensley wanted the contest to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to honor a man who has come to symbolize peace and nonviolent solutions to social problems.

“The hardest thing I had to do was forgive the boy who killed my son,” Hilliard said. “He was a victim too. He was a victim of non-love.”

Touching a photo of Hilliard’s son Demetrius, Audubon eighth-grader Sabrina Anderson said she held little hope for immediate changes. “One of my friends was killed recently, and I feel like the mothers today, like a part of me was lost,” she said. “Schools aren’t safe. We just have to have faith and hope for the best.”

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