Family, Friends Hold Vigil for Slain Woman in Watts

They marched with candles and prayed softly for a woman known to them simply as Mother McClain. A priest offered a few words of peace. Church hymns floated through the cool night air.

Family and friends of 82-year-old Viola McClain gathered Wednesday outside the slain woman’s home in Watts for a vigil. About 60 people showed up to pay respect to McClain, a pillar of East 111th Street for more than 60 years who was gunned down in front of her home just moments after returning from church last Friday.

“We ask that the Lord bring peace where hatred is [and] bring love where violence is,” the Rev. R.L. Ewell of Community Youth Gang Services told the group outside McClain’s home.

Cupping candles in their hands, mourners walked half a block from McClain’s home near the Nickerson Gardens housing project to Village Baptist Church, the place McClain had prayed for so many years. There, they also prayed, and vowed to keep their children safe on the streets.

As if to underscore the danger in McClain’s neighborhood, someone threw a rock and shattered a police car windshield down the block from McClain’s house shortly before the vigil began. Police said they did not think the incident was related to the gathering.

Family members asked the public’s help in finding McClain’s killers. No arrests had been reported by Wednesday night.

McClain was slain after her grandson confronted some teenagers who were trying to set the abandoned house next door on fire, authorities said. The teens pulled a gun on the grandson, Dumar Starks, 33. As Starks ran into the house, McClain went outside and was shot in the neck.

Anthony Davis of Watts Youth in Action said the gathering was intended to send an anti-violence message to the community.

“It’s like a wildfire burning out of control. We must be the volunteer firefighters called to action to start battling this blaze,” Davis said.