Keeping the Peace : Violence: Gang mediator Jimmie Powell is recovering after being shot. Amid a Venice turf war, he won’t give up on youths.

As he contemplated the metal staples binding the gunshot wound on his forearm, Jimmie Powell said he remained committed to bringing peace to Venice, where a war between black and Latino gangs has taken 11 lives and wounded 24 since September.

“I’m going to keep on speaking and waving to people. This is not going to stop me,” Powell, 32, said this week. “I’ll be back out there.”

On a recent Saturday evening, Powell, a gang mediator with Project Heavy West, a nonprofit Venice group trying to keep youths out of trouble, was walking near his home at 4th and Vernon avenues when he was approached by two Latino youths on bicycles.

Powell, who is black, gave his customary wave, recognizing both of the youths. One of them opened fire, sending Powell scrambling behind a van.

Powell said he thought about negotiating as he hunkered behind the vehicle. But the idea disintegrated in another hail of gunfire, and he fled.

Hit in the right arm, he stumbled on the pavement. After the gunmen fled, Powell ran to his house for help. Neither he nor police know the shooter’s motive.

“I couldn’t believe I was being shot at,” Powell said. “Both of these guys live right near me.”

A 17-year-old whose name has not been released has been arrested and charged with attempted murder in the Powell shooting and murder in connection with the killing of Shawn Patterson, a 24-year-old nursing assistant with no gang affiliations, who was shot in November. The second suspect has not been found.

For neighborhood activists, the shooting was another sign of the danger mediators encounter when trying to forge peace between gangs. They point to the killing last week in South-Central Los Angeles of former gang member Tony Thomas, the founder of Hands Across Watts and architect of a gang truce there, who was shot to death by suspected drug dealers he apparently tried to counsel.

Youth counselors in Oakwood believe their job is getting harder. Chronic unemployment, tension with law enforcement and friction among neighbors as the area is gentrified have hampered their efforts.

Peacemakers like Powell, activists said, are desperately needed.

“Jimmie occupies a unique bridge between the streets and the community,” said Lorenzo Merritt, director of Project Heavy West. “He’s well-known, has a level head and has the trust of civic leaders (and) families.”

After his mother died, Powell was forced to raise his younger brother, now 19, from the age of 13. Since graduation from Venice High School in 1979, Powell has held a variety of jobs, including employment as a janitor and construction worker, which kept him in the neighborhood.

Two years ago, he started working for the Pearl White Theater in Oakwood, a nonprofit drama group helping local youth. He was later hired at Project Heavy West to advise youths and mediate gang disputes.

Powell played a critical role in delaying the onset of the gang war by holding a meeting in early October at Venice High School among gang members, school officials and mediators.

“The kids didn’t want to talk in front of the principal so I took them aside,” Powell said. “At first they were really pointing fingers, mad-dogging each other, but by the end they were shaking hands. I just let them talk.”

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Bud Jacobs, Venice High School principal, wrote a letter to Project Heavy West commending Powell’s work.

An ability to empathize, listen, give timely advice and his easygoing manner make Powell a unique counselor, his young charges say.

“I was running with the wrong crowd, thinking of dropping out of school when I went to him last year,” said Demarcio Williams, a 17-year-old Venice High student. “He mentioned my best friend who’d been shot and killed (and) said my friend would want me to do good. He showed me pictures of people in jail. It changed me. I’m back in school and I’ve got a tutor. I still go over to his house three times a month to talk to him.”

So do many others.

On a typical afternoon at Powell’s tidy bungalow that he shares with two brothers, a parade of visitors streams by. The phone rings incessantly, cars pull up outside and drivers honk and wave. It is a hub of good-natured kibitzing in a neighborhood of barred windows, clamped steering wheels and an occasional siren.

Powell turns somber when he thinks of the 17-year-old suspected of shooting him.

“I remember he (the suspect) came to our center for counseling,” Powell said. “He kept saying he didn’t care if he got killed or not. We offered him a possible job but it didn’t work out.”

Powell, like Merritt, believes employment is key to resolving the region’s gang troubles.

“It’s going to take a combination of law enforcement, social agencies and educational programs focusing on the young men in this community,” said Merritt. “But nothing’s going to matter if we don’t prepare them for work.”

And if there is any lesson to be learned from Powell’s shooting, he says it is this: “I want people to see that I’m not retaliating, that even after being hit, I’m still trying to keep the peace.”