In Altadena, Small but Daring Steps in a March Against Fear : ‘We want to walk down the street and tell gang members, “You cannot have any more of our children.” ’

These are Juan Jones’ courageous deeds:

He wore gym shorts edged with bright red trim. And he marched down a scruffy Altadena street one recent afternoon with three dozen slogan-chanting, peace-demanding neighbors.

Not bad for an 11-year-old schoolboy growing up in a neighborhood touched by fear.

A shy kid with a soft giggle, Juan joined the Altadena Peace March last Sunday with an attitude both defiant and timid.

He dared wear a scrap of red--a notorious gang color--on a street where Crips and Bloods are said to hang out. Yet he admitted that he was uneasy about hoisting a hearts-and-rainbows bannerin a rough part of town.

He did it, he said, for Justin.

Justin Richard was one of Juan’s Little League teammates, a spunky outfielder killed by straygunfire that did not involve gangs in late March as he trudged home after school. His death nudged community leaders into anguished action. Since the funeral, they have railed during impassioned meetings, counseled fidgety gangbangers, organized prayerful marches.

It’s not much, they know, but it’s a start.

“The walking is just a symbol,” organizer Rena Dyson said. “I want peoples’ hearts to change.”

For now, some hearts may be too numb to change. Too many shootings have scarred residents like Ron Williams, a sorrowful parent who said at Justin’s funeral: “I’m going to try to teach my kids that this is a part of life. You never know who’s going to be next.”

Indeed, a few weeks after Justin’s death, an Altadena teen-ager was slain outside a birthday party in Pasadena. And the morning of the peace march, adults were fussing about the mysterious gunshots that awoke them after midnight.

But the way organizers figure it, the bigger the fear, the better the cause.

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Community activists Dyson, Penny Daniels and Donna Hensen organized the peace march in part to nudge Altadena residents into action.

They had planned the event to honor Justin. But local ministers played up that angle in their own peace march on April 22. So the women decided to turn their demonstration into an all-purpose call to arms.

Or rather, a call against arms.

“We want to walk down the street and tell gang members, ‘You cannot have any more of our children. You cannot have this community without a real fight,’ ” Dyson explained.

In truth, gang members are not even close to taking over Altadena. Sheriff’s Lt. John A. Samuel counts only about 50 Crips and Bloods, and says most of the trouble comes from elsewhere.

Although graffiti scars buildings and billboards along Lincoln Avenue, much of Altadena remains quiet. A racially mixed, unincorporated community under county jurisdiction, the town spirals gently into the San Gabriel

Mountains, offering many residents spectacular views of the peaks.

The town’s first homes were mansions built mainly by wealthy Easterners as winter residences. Some of those homes remain. But most of Altadena is a mixture of tiny bungalows and comfortable tract homes, reflecting an economic mix that includes the poor as well as the solidly middle class.

And the 43,000 residents remain close enough to stage a popular Christmas lights display.

Still, gunshots snap through the streets now and then, and drug deals go down on neglected corners. Like most towns, Altadena has a fair share of glowering teen-agers with saggy pants and sassy attitudes.

In a nervy display of force, scores of young toughs recently marched down the streets in gang attire. As they stormed down Lincoln Avenue, they chanted slogans like, “I’m going to kill every SOB in Altadena” and ‘We’re going to take this town over.”

So people fear.

“At our organizational meeting, there were people who said, ‘I’m scared to march up the street,’ ” recounted Daniels, the county’s recreational services supervisor for Loma Alta Park in Altadena. “People are even afraid to make phone calls to the Sheriff’s Department because they fear retaliation” from gang members.

Ronald Matthews, who claims to have been one of Altadena’s founding gangsters, once helped stoke those fears.

Although he now describes himself as “reformed,” Matthews speaks almost proudly of his ugly past: the jobs he lost, the cocaine he smoked, the drugs he sold. He presses a small bulge in his right forearm, near his wrist--a bullet, he says, from a botched drive-by shooting.

Matthews, 31, said he quit active gangbanging a few years back because ‘I don’t believe in killing anymore.”

But he still understands those who do.

“We don’t have a gang problem or a drug problem, we have a people problem,” he said after the peace march. “These young men, they have their backs against the mountains and nothing to do. I’ve seen what our community has to offer--nothing.”

Indeed, some Altadena leaders argue that community activists should focus on boosting recreation and mentoring programs instead of organizing feel-good marches.

“The peace march, all that did was to say, ‘Thank you for not killing anyone for the past 30 days,’ ” said Walter Martin, who chairs Altadena’s elected Town Council. “It’s too gentle. It’s a waste of time.”

As a hard-edged alternative to marches, Martin points to his efforts to create Neighborhood Watch groups and to kick drug dealers off his street. His success earned Martin and his wife, Anita, Altadena’s Citizens of the Year award in 1990.

In a renewed drive to boot out the bad guys, the Martins are now fighting to close a problem-plagued liquor store and shut down a notorious drug house. They have also recorded a 30-minute cassette tape, titled “Solve Your Neighborhood Problems.”

To fellow Town Council member Millie Lee, however, Altadena’s problems seem far too sad to wrap up neatly in a half-hour pep talk. She’s done the marches. She’s done the prayers. And she’s done the volunteer tutoring designed to ease troubled kids back on track. All of it has worked, a little. But, Lee says, none of it has worked enough.

“I’ve gone to funerals until I’m tired of funerals,” she said. ‘Frankly, I think this is a lost generation. I don’t think we can do anything about them.”

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Local leaders know that marches aren’t enough.

So they’re already planning another march--one that will be bigger, they promise, and have more impact. But however many people turn out, Dyson predicted, each march will inspire someone, somewhere to start fighting for the community.

“If you have thousands of people marching, (onlookers) figure, ‘Oh, they’re taking care of it,’ ” Dyson said. “I want them to figure, ‘There’s not enough people out there, so maybe I should go join them.’ ”

Saluting those who joined the first peace march last weekend, Dyson singled out the kids--both teen-agers and elementary-school students like Juan, who clutched a good-luck quarter as he walked down Lincoln Avenue.

“You made history because you were standing up,” Dyson told the children. “Don’t worry about who’s standing next to you now. Because once it gets going, hundreds of people will be there to share the credit.”