Venice Leaders Call Warning Flyers Racist : Activism: Material tells whites of danger of being killed by Latino gangs. Self-described ‘agitator’ says he wants businesses to take action.

A man whose group has handed out 2,000 flyers warning whites that they are in danger of being shot by Latino gangs has vowed to continue distributing the material unless the business community steps up concern over gang violence in the Oakwood section of Venice.

Community and business leaders were quick to denounce the flyers, distributed in upscale shopping districts near Oakwood, as racially inflammatory and counterproductive to ending the violence.

Timothy Crayton, a self-described “agitator” operating out of Wesley House, a crisis intervention center in Oakwood, expressed hope that the flyers would scare off customers at local businesses, which would in turn motivate the business community to pay more attention to rampant gang violence in Oakwood.

“We’re not really here to hurt anyone, but we’re dying here,” said Crayton, a black activist who claims to represent the Shoreline Crips, a local gang. “We’re tired of carrying casket after casket. The smell of death is everywhere, and we’re trying to share our misery with the people we spend our money with.”

A war between black and Latino gangs in Oakwood has killed at least 17 people, many of them innocent bystanders, and injured 55 in the past nine months. Crayton blames the bloodshed on “outside boys,” mainly Latinos, and described the flyers as an attempt to show whites that Oakwood is under siege.

The flyers were distributed to shoppers on Abbott Kinney Boulevard and Main Street in Venice and Santa Monica--artsy, upscale commercial districts bordering Oakwood.

The flyers read: “WARNING UNSAFE AREA; White Customers Shopping in this Section of Venice May be Shot Dead by Mexican Gangs--Without Notice.”

Los Angeles Police Department officials said there is no record of any whites being shot by Latino gangs in the shopping areas.

A second handout was distributed in much smaller numbers within the Oakwood community. It urged residents to “stop snitching” on local black men.

“When you see black men carrying guns through your yard, support him--give him a sack full of bullets!” the flyer said. “Our youths are out there risking their lives to protect you older folks from Mexican bullets.”

Police, who have complained that their efforts to end the gang war have been stymied by a lack of cooperation from Oakwood residents, were muted in their response to the flyers, which appear to be protected under the First Amendment.

“If somebody wants to pass out flyers, even if it’s something untrue and something we don’t like, there’s nothing we can do,” Police Sgt. Andrew Smith said.

But community leaders were quick to distance themselves from the handouts, some of which bore the name of New Bethel Baptist Church in Oakwood.

“I don’t know anything about it,” New Bethel Pastor Marvis Davis said. “Whoever wrote it put the name of the church in there so people would read it.”

Jeff Prang, spokesman for Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, whose district includes Venice, condemned the flyers as “absolutely outrageous.”

“They’re inflammatory, they’re counterproductive, they’re not helpful in addressing some of the very serious problems we’re having in Oakwood,” he said.

Merchants, tormented by a lingering recession, handled the flyers as if they carried a deadly virus.

Most said they threw them away almost the moment they received them. An employee of one store walked around snatching flyers from car windshields before anyone had a chance to read them.

Carol Tantau-Smith, a board member of the Abbot Kinney District Assn., refused to discuss the flyers within earshot of customers of her jewelry store.

In the privacy of a back room, she defended the Abbott Kinney business community as deeply concerned about the violence and active in trying to stop it. She also disputed the notion of an all-white business community, noting that many stores in the district are black-owned.

But Zeneta Kertisz, a gallery curator on Abbott Kinney, termed the flyers a genuine, if misguided, call for help.

“It’s unfortunate they had to go to such an extreme to get the attention,” Kertisz said. “You tend to scare people and alienate people even more, but I understand why they’re doing it.”

The flyers, according to a credit line at the bottom, were distributed by “Venice Pathfinders,” a “group of Local African-American Men . . . Committed to Real Solutions for the Venice Situation.”

Crayton, publisher of a controversial newsletter that is critical of Oakwood community leaders, described himself as the roving coordinator of the organization. He contends that Oakwood is the target of a land grab by well-healed developers, a popular theory among some locals.

During an interview, he called for federal low-income housing complexes to be patrolled by members of his group; the establishment of a “free enterprise zone” in Oakwood, Santa Monica and the waterfront to “convert the Shoreline Crips into small businesses,” and a meeting with local business leaders to discuss the violence.