Family Flees Gang Area, but Fears Remain

Vanessa Smith shut the iron screen door to her South-Central Los Angeles home of 13 years for the last time Friday, escaping the gangs believed to be responsible for the shooting that critically wounded her 2- and 14-year-old children.

But as Smith realized her longtime wish--thanks to special funds from the Los Angeles Police Department and muscle power from a community group--her neighbors were torn. Yes, they are happy for friends who are starting anew, they said, but they worry about what faces the neighborhood Smith is leaving.

Police, who arrested the suspected gunmen with assistance from neighbors, have pledged to ease the gang problem on this stretch of Hoover Street near 61st Street, said to be the dividing line between turf of rival gangs.

The area’s City Council representative, Rita Walters, used her clout to erect an iron fence to control gang traffic through the alleyway from which the suspects fired. Keys will soon be given only to residents who need access.

And the Stop the Violence / Increase the Peace Foundation, which helped the move, promises to build an office only yards from Smith’s former home.

But neighbors fear that the assistance is too little to make a difference in their daily lives. “There’s nobody to protect us. We’re on our own,” said 17-year-old Mayra Gomez, whose family lives in an apartment next door to the Smith home. “I’m glad something is being done for that family. But we all have needs.”

Like many neighbors, Gomez heard the 30 shots fired on the evening of Feb. 15, when Ezekiel Ford, 14, and Shantel Shannon, 2, were gunned down. The children fought for their lives in the next anxious days and were out of mortal danger by Ezekiel’s 14th birthday Feb. 21.

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But doctors are still trying to close five fragment wounds in Shantel’s right leg and save the limb from amputation.

Ezekiel is about to begin rehabilitation for his most serious wound, a gunshot to the head. He recognizes family members and is responding to commands with nods. But only time and rehabilitation will tell if he will speak again, family members say.

Police arrested Reginald Carr, 23, Derrick Easely, 18, and a 16-year-old a week after the shooting, attributing the quick arrests to tips from the community. Later, they recovered a semiautomatic weapon believed to have been used in the shooting. Sgt. J.J. May, in charge of the anti-gang unit that patrols the area, said the arrests are an example of the difference community support makes.

He called for residents to continue to let police know where and when gang members congregate, promising that officers will respond.

“There’s not much we can do for the area without their help,” he said. “People say we only come out when something awful happens, but they have to understand we don’t have a crystal ball. We need to work together.”

Walters conceded that the alley gate will not solve problems on a larger scale. But she said that in other neighborhoods, blocking alleys and restricting keys has limited loitering, drug sales and other gang activities.

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She decried state and federal governmental restrictions that limit local government’s ability to control guns.

“The question is not just confined to that neighborhood. The guns are in the hands of criminals, and we don’t have the legal ability to legislate guns on the local level,” she said.

Despite the efforts of police and politicians, Robert Webster, 44, a neighbor and friend of the Smith family, wonders if it takes the near-deaths of two children for police and politicians to respond.

“The only time they come around here is if they can get some publicity,” said Webster, 44. “What upsets me is how close my family came to this. My kids go over to visit all the time.”

He said he too would like to move his wife, 3-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter, but doesn’t have the money. Laid off from a Carson machine shop after it relocated to Arizona, he has been working odd jobs in construction since. He says he is going to trade school and is waiting to hear from Pacific Bell about work installing phones. Webster says he tries to ensure his family’s safety by banding together with other residents of his small apartment complex a block from where the children were felled.

“Everybody up in there is family. We got our own little gang,” he said. “We don’t let any of the dangerous things in this neighborhood get to us.”

Angie MacClain, 29, a mental health worker at Edgemont Hospital in Hollywood who now lives in Hawthorne, said she visits the neighborhood twice a week because of that bond.

“People don’t steal from each other. If you’re gone, they’ll take care of your house for you while you’re gone,” she said.

Watching four young boys play basketball in the street on a portable rim set up down the block from the Smith home, she bemoaned the lack of recreational activity, remembering a now-closed corner arcade where she played pool and video games as a teenager.

Stop the Violence/Increase the Peace’s pledge to build an office, including youth activities, will help, she said. But neighbors are still largely on their own.

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As she packed her belongings into a plastic bag, Vanessa Smith stressed to a reporter that even this block, a neighborhood most people try to avoid, was filled with good memories.

Collecting worn pots and pans and wiping down old furniture, she recalled Shantel falling off the outside gate, crying, and how she so easily quieted her baby’s sobs with a hug and kiss. She remembered the pounding beat of a boombox from Ezekiel’s bedroom, blaring rap music that racked her brain but seems so sweet now. “Those are my best memories,” she said. “I think you can guess my worst.”