Roofer Finds Holiday Gunfire a Rain of Terror

Paul Klein, the owner of a Los Angeles roofing company, had something other than shingle textures and rain leaks to discuss with a customer recently. That client was Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams and the topic was the astounding number of bullets and shells that Klein and his employees keep finding on roofs all over the region.

Many of the bullets, the chief and roofer agreed, were probably fired during noisy New Year’s and Fourth of July celebrations that can inadvertently wreck lives blocks or miles away. “The question we should all ask is: What happened to those projectiles that did not land on the roofs?” Williams said at a news conference Wednesday. “Who did they hit? Where did they go?”

To emphasize the point, Williams invited Klein to the Coliseum on Wednesday to help kick off a campaign that urges residents not to welcome 1994 with bursts of skyward gunfire. Klein arrived with a pan filled with 15 pounds of bullets and cases, hundreds of rounds of spent ammunition plucked from atop houses, factories and office buildings in the last year--although some of the shells may have been fired more than a decade ago.

“They’re from all over the place,” said Klein, president of Rooftoppers Inc. “I just took four off of a roof in Culver City yesterday.”

Chief Williams and other officials said they hoped those discoveries will be less frequent in the future. Laws in Los Angeles, Compton and Inglewood that ban ammunition sales in the week before New Year’s and the Fourth of July are the most helpful, they said. Moreover, special police task forces will be tracking down reports of holiday gunfire Friday night and early Saturday morning.

The Los Angeles law is going into its fourth year, and officials suggest that is why no one has been reported killed or injured by falling bullets on the last two New Year’s Eves. Although the amount of holiday gunfire seems to be decreasing, Williams emphasized that “we won’t be happy, we won’t be satisfied until it is reduced to zero.”

Eddy Garcia could not agree more. The amount of gunfire in his neighborhood just south of Downtown was “a little less” last Dec. 31 than on previous New Year’s Eves. Still, the 27-year-old construction worker remains frightened of getting hit by an earthbound bullet Friday night.

“I won’t go out. It’s too dangerous,” Garcia said as he escorted two young friends to the Museum of Natural History in nearby Exposition Park on Wednesday.

In Koreatown, Western Gunstore manager David Joo said some people seeking ammunition this week complain about the law banning such sales. “I think it’s a good law, but in terms of business, it’s a little bit difficult,” he said.

Joo never heard gunfire on New Year’s in his homeland of South Korea or in Colorado, where he immigrated nine years ago. He was stunned by the noise of gunfire on New Year’s Eve, 1988, his first in Los Angeles. So although he thinks that such shooting is decreasing, he takes precautions near his east Hollywood home. “I don’t let my family out on New Year’s Eve, especially at 12 o’clock.”

Similar fears have crimped many New Year’s activities in recent years.

For example, the St. Anthony Grand Lodge chapter, a Masonic group, used to hold festive New Year’s Eve dances in its banquet room at Figueroa and 41st streets. But attendance dropped, partly because of the holiday gunfire, said the club’s clerk, Jacqueline Babtist. The parties ended three years ago, she said, because “it’s gotten to the point where people are afraid to come out.”

At the nearby Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, senior pastor Melvin V. Wade Sr. said the tradition of praying in the New Year from 9 p.m. on Dec. 31 through midnight was dropped five years ago in favor of what he calls marathon “Prayer Bowls” during daylight hours on Jan. 1. Church members feel better about that schedule, because bullets fired randomly into the air “have no eyes and have a lot of power,” Rev. Wade said.

His prayers for 1994 will be for “deliverance, healing, unity and love for one another” in Los Angeles.

Last year, the Los Angeles Police Department fielded 265 calls of shots fired into the air, down from 565 the year before. However, in areas of Los Angeles County patrolled by sheriff’s deputies, the number of such reported shootings rose last year to 777, up from 526 the year before; 16 people were injured by falling bullets in sheriff’s territory last Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, while no one was reported hurt in those areas the previous New Year’s holiday.

The last person reported killed by a falling bullet in the city of Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve was 23-year-old Hector Lopez, who was struck on the skull by a bullet as he walked Downtown. A San Diego gardener, Lopez apparently was on the way to a family party as 1987 became 1988. “He was hit right square in the top of the head and he was probably dead before he hit the ground,” said Detective Jose Reyes, who handled the case. No arrest was made.

At the Coliseum news conference Wednesday, officials displayed a large model billboard that proclaims in English and Spanish: “Don’t Endanger Your Loved Ones.” It shows a hand firing a pistol, covered with the red symbol of a slash within a circle. In addition to Chief Williams, other speakers included Los Angeles City Council members Ruth Galanter and Joel Wachs, and Police Chiefs Oliver Thompson of Inglewood, Hourie Taylor of Compton and Michael Trevis of Bell.

Klein told reporters that he repaired the roof on Williams’ new home in Woodland Hills a few months ago. Asked whether he found any bullets there, he quickly replied: “Absolutely not.”