Violence Intrudes on Pool, an Oasis for Youths in Watts : Parks: Six lifeguards are hurt, one critically, at Will Rogers Park. New fees that exclude some are also cited.

In Watts, where escapes from the summer heat are comparatively few, the pool at Will Rogers Park has been an oasis of sorts, a place where parents could drop off the kids and know they were safe and having fun.

But in the last three days, six lifeguards have been attacked--and one critically injured--in two separate violent outbreaks by teen-agers. All of a sudden, with Los Angeles still simmering in the first hot blast of summer, residents of the lower-income community are left wondering if there are any havens.

“This pool is a place where everyone would come to cool off,” said Veola Williams, a grandmother whose children grew up using the pool. “Mothers would bring their children down here and let them play all day. But now they can’t do that.”

Authorities cited several possible contributors to the unusual violence: gang hostilities, the heat, the youthful zeal that always accompanies the opening of public pools for the summer, and new admission fees imposed to keep the pool operating. For the first time in more than a decade, residents must pay to take a dip--$1 for children, $2 for adults.

“Usually, the lifeguards are respected,” said Samuel V. Jones, assistant director of the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation, who blamed the violence mainly on unruly gangs but conceded that the new fees might have aggravated tensions. Jones said he could not recall any previous incidents in which lifeguards were so vigorously assaulted.

“We haven’t, to my knowledge, had a lifeguard beaten to within an inch of his life,” he said. “I feel angry. There is something that we should be able to do to deal with this type of problem--not just in the parks, but in the community in general. We are letting a very small number of people set the agenda for the way we live.”

The first attack Monday, on the pool’s first day of summer swimming, occurred after a lifeguard came off his stand and dunked a teen-ager who had been performing “cannonballs” off the diving board, senior lifeguard Arten Thompson said. At that point, several suspected gang members jumped the lifeguard and a melee erupted as other lifeguards tried to intervene.

One lifeguard suffered a broken nose and another required stitches for a cut on his foot suffered during the scuffle, Thompson said.

On Tuesday, more serious violence began with the apparent hazing of a 13-year-old who was being initiated into a gang, Thompson said. As one lifeguard tried to protect the teen-ager from excessive roughness, lifeguard Paul Alba pulled another attacker away, then was beaten. During the fight, one lifeguard said, about 10 older gang members--all 16 or older, he estimated--scaled the 10-foot-high fence to join in.

Alba was stomped and severely beaten, and was listed in critical condition Wednesday at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. He had not regained consciousness after gashing his head on the concrete pool deck, authorities said.

At the hospital, family members gathered around his bed in the intensive-care unit, encouraging him to emerge from the coma while he awaited surgery to relieve pressure on the brain.

Alba’s wife, Veronica, tearfully remembered how she had warned him against working at Will Rogers pool this summer for fear of gang violence. The veteran lifeguard, who had worked there for three summers, had been hired at another park, but decided to return to a place where he was known.

“I didn’t want him to go back because I thought it was too dangerous there, but he told me nothing was going to happen,” she said. “He said he would be all right.”

Alba had coached the swim team at Will Rogers. He is a graduate of Huntington Park High, where he swam the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events. He and Veronica have a 9-month-old daughter.

“He loves kids and he loves swimming,” his wife said.

Although outbreaks of teen-age violence are most common when pools open for the summer, county officials acknowledged that the new user fees have been a sore point. Lifeguards, in fact, were counseled about the potential for trouble, said Jones, the assistant county parks director.

“We knew there might be problems with the new fees and we have included them in the training sessions with the lifeguards, making them aware of the types of complaints and frustrations (that they might face),” Jones said.

“We’ve had some staff report incidents where some kids were beginning to act up and, when the staff tried to stop it, they were told, ‘Now that we’re paying, you can’t tell me anything,’ ” Jones added. “I don’t know if it’s widespread or just a couple of incidents.”

Because of the violence, four Park Police cars were stationed outside the pool Wednesday.

Located at 103rd Street and Central Avenue, only blocks from the flash point of the 1965 Watts riots, Will Rogers pool is one of the county’s most heavily used. It serves Watts and adjoining unincorporated county territory, where many families cannot afford outings to the beach or to indoor, air-conditioned recreational spots.

As a result of the new fees, the wrought-iron fence bordering the pool has become a harsh dividing line between the haves and have-nots. Inside, the swimmers splash and cavort, while outside others only watch and endure the heat.

On Wednesday, one neighborhood resident, a 25-year-old who called himself Bronco, sat on a bench outside with a small crowd of those who could not afford to swim. A onetime member of the pool’s diving team, Bronco said he would love to be out there, if only he had $2 to spare.

“All my life I’ve been going to this pool for free,” he said. “I’d be in there now if I had the money.”

Larry Netherly, whose 10-year-old son was frolicking in the water, said he had been approached by several children asking for quarters, trying to raise the dollar they needed. “Many of the families are indigent,” he said.

Thompson, the senior lifeguard, said many parents leave their children at the pool five days a week, using it as a child-care center. But some parents cannot afford the new $1-per-child rate, he added.

“Things have been very tense since we opened with the new fees,” Thompson said. “The first thing people say is that they don’t like the new fee.”

The fees were instituted by county officials to avoid closing the pool because of budget shortfalls. So far this year, attendance is down about one-third from last year’s daily average of 500 to 600 swimmers.

Detective Carlo Ponce, a member of the county sheriff’s Operation Safe Streets program, said Will Rogers pool has been relatively free of trouble in past years, even though the park and surrounding community have a high incidence of robbery. A gang is active in the area, but its members generally leave the park alone, Ponce said.

“They know that if there are problems in the parks, we are going to step up our proactive policing,” which means a crackdown on all dubious activity in the area, he said.

Fred MacFarlane, a spokesman for Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who represents the neighborhood, said Burke is concerned about the condition of the injured lifeguard and the remainder of the staff. Burke is also concerned about the effect of the admission charges on poorer families, he said. “We’re . . . looking at ways to subsidize some of these fees, to help defray some of the expenses--not just at Will Rogers, but at other pools,” he said. “We want to keep the pools . . . (available) at a time when the heat is raging. We don’t need tempers to flare any more than (they have) already.”

Times staff writers Richard Lee Colvin and David Ferrell contributed to this article.