Venice Residents Seek to Organize a Gang Truce

The bullets are flying again in Venice.

The streets of its Oakwood district crackle in the late evenings when dusk settles over the small bungalows. Cars seem more menacing and children are yanked inside.

The days aren’t much better. It was, after all, early afternoon on April 4 when young Rafael Adan was gunned down in neighboring Mar Vista, the other community bracing itself after a recent onslaught of gang shootings in the area.

Angry and desperate community members are raising their voices against the violence, trying to stop the shootings before the gang war escalates into the same kind of bloody mess that left 17 dead and 55 injured three years ago. Gang prevention workers are working to broker a truce between a black gang from Oakwood and a Latino gang based in Mar Vista.

In the last two months, four people have been killed and 10 injured in the deadly standoff.

The death of 14-year-old Rafael, the youngest victim so far, sparked a flurry of meetings in the two neighborhoods last week. On Saturday, Mar Vista parents gathered at St. Gerard Church for a community meeting. Oakwood residents held a peace rally at the recreation center.

On April 26, the two groups plan to march through the neighborhoods and rally at Venice High School.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Ruth Galanter met with gang prevention workers and law enforcement officials last week. Mediators from the U.S. Department of Justice’s community relations service say they are working in the two communities.

In Mar Vista, parents drew up a list of proposed ways to stave off a gang war, including increasing after-school activities, opening churches in the afternoon and creating partnerships between parents in the two neighborhoods.

But even as residents spoke out, the violence continued. Hours after the Saturday meetings, shots were fired along the narrow Oakwood streets. This time, no one was hurt, but no one was counting on that luck to last.

*

“I’m not OK with the idea of not even being able to let my kids go out and play or to go to the store,” said Oakwood resident Rebecca Tafoya, choking back tears. “There’s no payoff for [gang involvement]. Just, ‘I’m big, I’m bad.’ And then what?”

Some say only a self-imposed truce by gang members--not outside efforts--will make a difference.

“If peace is going to happen, it’s going to be the gang members who do it,” said Melvyn Hayward, a gang outreach worker with Project Heavy West. “All these people talking--that just isn’t going to make it happen.”

A member of the black gang, the Shoreline Crips, responded: “Right now, we want peace if they [the Latino gang] want peace, but we’re not going to approach them and have them start shooting at us.”

Even those organizing the community gatherings seem wearily resigned.

“I don’t know if this is the answer,” said Kathy Brown, founder of Venice for a Positive Change, one of the groups spearheading community efforts. “We’re grasping at straws at this point.”

On a hot Saturday afternoon, about 100 Oakwood residents straggled into the recreation center for a “Rally for Peace.” Community members called for parents to be more involved in their children’s lives and clergy preached a better understanding between African Americans and Latinos.

“My heart is hurting for all the children who lost their lives here,” said Lucien Lewis, whose 18-year-old son Michaud was killed March 31 as he walked to a pay phone near his house. “What are we doing? We need to have peace. We cannot have a war in this community. It’s just unacceptable.”

Even as people berated the scourge of violence, they spoke sympathetically about the lack of resources for young people.

*

Many said the violence is rooted in a growing tension between African Americans and Latinos who are living increasingly close together and fighting over space and resources.

“We have to learn how to live together, how not to see colors,” said Lucia Diaz, executive director of the Mar Vista Family Center. “There is only one color of blood.”

“Blacks and Latinos are going to continue living close around each other, so there’s no need for all this killing,” said Robert Hayes, a former gang member.

Inside, the two-hour rally ended in an embrace between former African American and Latino gang members. But the real test, residents said, is whether the peace will last outside.

The gunfire still comes regularly. Every few days, the predawn stillness is shattered by a volley of bullets.

In Mar Vista, community workers said friends of Rafael--many of whom saw him gunned down--are still dealing with the trauma of his death.

As Michaud Lewis was being buried last Thursday, his son Michaud Lewis, Jr. was born. The juxtaposition of birth and death strikes a bitter chord in the close-knit Oakwood community.

“It’s springtime, but there ain’t no flowers growing out here,” Hayward said. “They keep on using all the flowers for the burials.”

* A FATHER’S DEATH

Life & Style columnist Robin Abcarian visits the gang war in Venice. E1