Central Los Angeles : 76 Crosses Honor Victims of Violence

Sophomore Emily Castillo knelt before one of the 76 plastic foam crosses in a field at Roosevelt High School on Thursday, and gently pinned a baby-blue ribbon to it.

It was in memory of her cousin Emily Castillo, shot dead in gang cross-fire just before Christmas a few blocks from the Boyle Heights school.

Each cross represented a young person who died in a homicide or suicide in the city’s Eastside in the first eight months of last year, according to event sponsors, who cited corner’s statistics. They were planted as part of a New Year’s Peace Resolution event sponsored by Dolores Mission church.

The event, featuring speakers, music and a mock cemetery, brought 250 students together to remember victims of gun violence and to sign banners pledging a nonviolent 1996.

Rosa Campos, a 21-year-old Roosevelt graduate, barely had room for the ribbons representing nine friends who have come to violent ends, and three more who died untimely deaths.

“After a while you don’t know how to react to the deaths,” Campos said. “You just try to stay strong.”

Sponsors of the event, including one youth who survived a gunshot wound to the head, urged students to end the cycle of killings and revenge that is devastating minority youths.

“You have a choice,” said gunshot victim Javier Frausto. “You can do something about it or you can take a chance of getting shot in the head. We’re the ones dying. We’re the ones doing the shooting.”

Students, some in tears, filed over to the cemetery and hung banners, most leaving hopeful messages.

But a 15-year-old scrawled a tribute to fellow gang members: “RIP: Blacky, Clown, Smyley, Primo, Bouncer, Osito.” Seeing the crosses hurt, he said, but not enough to shake his gang loyalties.

“I don’t care if they kill me,” he said. “There’s bad times and there’s good times.”