MISSION HILLS : Rally to Target Gangs, Violence and Graffiti

A rally against graffiti, violence and gangs will be held at Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills tonight.

Sister Beth McPherson, vice president of planning and mission services at the hospital, said the rally is part of an effort to try to do something to slow the rising crime rate.

After watching too many victims die from gunshots and gang violence, hospital officials have been saying to themselves, “Maybe we should be doing something about preventing them from getting here in the first place,” she said.

The event will include a call for volunteers for a graffiti removal day Aug. 6. Hospital officials hope that by attacking graffiti, they will remove one of the ways that gangs exchange threats with each other and escalate violence, McPherson said.

Also speaking at the rally will be Lin Squires, the mother of a Granada Hills High School student killed nearly four years ago. She later founded the group Mad About Rising Crime, or MARC.

The rally will offer the first public performance by the Gang Violence Prevention Theater Troupe, a group of three actors--two former gang members--organized by the Valley Community Clinic and partly funded by Holy Cross Medical Center.

The theater group will perform two skits, one about a doctor speaking to the audience of the frustration he feels at not being able to save a 14-year-old shooting victim who got caught in the cross-fire between two gang members. The other skit is about a brother trying to talk his younger brother into quitting his gang.

Afterward, the actors will be available for questions, along with Arturo Lopez, a former gang member in Sylmar who was paralyzed by a gunshot wound 1 1/2 years ago.

Hospital and clinic officials hope to bring the theater group into local schools soon.

The rally, to begin at 6:30 p.m., will be at the Skilled Nursing Facility of the hospital, 11600 Indian Hills Road, Mission Hills.