Man’s Home Burns 2 Weeks After Shooting

First came the bullets, slamming into Robert Lee Johnson’s leg and foot two weeks ago as he watched videos in the living room of his rented house in Norwalk. Then, at 4 a.m. Saturday, a firebomb exploded on his front porch, burning down the house.

The flames sent Johnson, 40, his wife, Camilla Green, and seven of their children and grandchildren, ages 2 to 22, running into the night. Johnson said he reopened the healing wounds as he hopped out of the house, leaving his crutches, while his wife handed the smaller children to him over a chain-link fence.

Johnson, who is African American, and his landlord, who is white, say both attacks were attempts by a Latino street gang to drive Johnson and his family from the neighborhood.

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department would not comment Saturday on whether the arson investigation included gang involvement or was being viewed as a hate crime.

Deputies said the neighborhood has experienced a rash of incidents involving Molotov cocktails in the last six weeks.

About the same time the fire began at Johnson’s house, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a white family’s home, deputies said. Six weeks ago, another firebomb was thrown at the home of a Latino family. Neither ignited, deputies said.

But Johnson, who was shot Feb. 10 and left the hospital Wednesday, and landlord Ercil Ewing say that recent events in the 12000 block of Walnut and Pine streets leave them little doubt that the bombing of his home was racially motivated.

“It’s a lot of racial stuff flaring up, Hispanics taunting blacks,” Johnson said. “My family was all in the house, in bed. They didn’t care what happened. They didn’t care who they killed in there.”

He said his children have been taunted while walking from school and at a corner phone booth, where they call their friends. His son has been beaten up. A brick was tossed through another neighbor’s window, carrying a racial epithet and a warning to get out. Johnson said the neighbor moved three weeks later.

Other residents of Walnut Street said they were unaware of racial tensions.

But Johnson said that since he came home from the hospital he has been watching videos, too frightened to sleep at night. He said his fear intensified Saturday night when he saw gang members congregating in an alley behind his house so he and his wife drove to the Norwalk sheriff’s substation. But he said they were told there was nothing deputies could do.