Bullet Fired Outside Athens Park Home Turns a Longed-For Day Into Tragedy

When the mail came to Juanita Palacio’s apartment in Athens Park on Wednesday afternoon, she was ecstatic. Buried in the junk mail was something she had long yearned for--her school bus driving license.

She had recently graduated from a bus driving course and would soon be taking children to school. Triumphantly, she called family and friends to tell them the news. It was one of the proudest days of her life.

It would also be her last.

A few hours later, as the 42-year-old immigrant from Belize sat on her navy blue leather couch watching the news on TV, a suspected gang member fired several shots from outside her front room window, Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators said.

The shots were apparently meant for a man her daughter knew, deputies said. Instead, one bullet struck Palacio in the heart. She was rushed to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

Investigators said Thursday that they had arrested three suspected gang members on suspicion of murder in connection with Palacio’s death.

Taken into custody were Martin Fields, 18, and two juveniles, 17 and 15, whose names were not released because of their ages. A handgun, believed to be the murder weapon, was discovered in a stolen vehicle the suspects were driving, deputies said.

Outside the beige stucco two-story apartment on 120th Street near Normandie Avenue where Palacio lived, her 18-year-old daughter Nalgia Myers spoke Thursday of the events that led to her mother’s final moments.

“I had just gone outside and was talking to a friend when he noticed this car drive by and he said: ‘Watch out, they might make a U-turn,’ ” Myers said in a dazed monotone.

But the car did not turn. Instead, Myers and her friend--a man she said she knows only as Brandon--heard a car door shut. A few seconds later, a young man was running toward them.

They rushed into the house. Before she could warn her mother, shots blasted through the large living room window. A hysterical 911 call followed. Paramedics arrived quickly. But Palacio lay mortally wounded.

Myers said her friend did not belong to a gang and that she did not know why anyone would shoot at him.

“I looked at her in the ambulance and I knew she was already dead,” said Stephanie Aldana, 22, the oldest of Palacio’s five children, who rushed to the apartment when she heard the news. “She always tried to protect us and always said to stay inside when it got dark. Now look what happened to her when she was inside.”

Palacio, who was born in Belize when it was still known as British Honduras, came to Los Angeles in the mid-1980s, settling in the West Adams area. Her first husband died two weeks after she gave birth to Stephanie.

“My mom was the only one I ever really had, the only one who ever cared for me when I was growing up,” said Stephanie, tears slowly falling.

Residents of the 1200 block of West 120th Street will have a carwash Saturday to help pay Palacio’s funeral expenses. Although the street is near two rival gang turfs, residents say shootings are rare on the block.

“This is the first time I have ever heard a shooting since I moved here in March,” said apartment manager Elaine Castillo, who is also from Belize and quickly became friends with Palacio. “She was such a caring person. She would take care of everyone’s kids. As soon as dusk came, she would tell all the children around here, ‘OK, time to go inside.’ ”

When the shots erupted, Castillo and her daughter heard screaming and went downstairs to investigate.

“My daughter said [Palacio] was not breathing, but I kept telling her Juanita would be all right,” said Castillo. “I guess it was just wishful thinking.”

Throughout Thursday afternoon, family and friends dropped by the apartment to pay their respects. Palacio’s son-in-law Bronson Ogles recalled her generosity.

“I was down on my luck and she would help me out with bills,” said Ogles, 27. “She respected everyone around here.”

Outside the apartment, four two-inch-wide bullet holes in the front window and two shattered Venetian blinds offered ghoulish testimony to what happened Wednesday night.

Inside, Myers showed a visitor a snapshot of her mother. Suddenly, the teenager, who had somberly dealt with an array of strangers, broke down.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I can’t believe my mama’s dead. I can’t believe it.”