Slain Teen Was to Join Anti-Violence Walk

Ricky Evans always marched to his own beat. While other teens were seduced by drugs and gangs, the 15-year-old aspiring drummer from Panorama City joined a neighborhood drill team and had planned to march next month in a demonstration to “stop the violence.”

But violence Friday night stopped Ricky when a drive-by shooting after a Monroe High School football game claimed the life of the ambitious sophomore.

“I’m just sick and tired of this,” sobbed 24-year-old George Fields, the boyfriend of Ricky’s older sister. “This boy ain’t nothing but 15 years old. He didn’t do nothing to nobody.

“He can’t even go to a football game?”

Los Angeles police said Saturday they had made no arrests but were following several leads that suggested either gang machismo was to blame or spiteful fans from Crenshaw High School, which lost the game by one point.

The shooting appears to have been the first incident of its kind following a Valley football game.

“I don’t remember anything like that,” said Joel Schaeffer, who has coached for 31 years and is head coach at Reseda High School.

“It’s certainly senseless and pretty sad, but so is our society at times,” Schaeffer said.

Elsewhere in the region, violence accompanying high school football games is nothing new.

Last year, one teenager was killed and another wounded after a football game between Playa Del Rey’s St. Bernard High and Long Beach’s Jordan High. A month earlier, a 20-year-old man was wounded in front of Westchester High School during a game against Washington High. That same night, a game between Inglewood and Lynwood high schools was called with nearly two minutes remaining after sheriff’s deputies became worried over fighting that occurred among spectators on the Inglewood side of the field.

After Ricky was killed, the mother of one of his friends said she had dreaded just such a tragedy because of the earlier incidents in the Southland and escalating violence in the north Valley.

Police records show that despite a decrease in overall crime citywide, San Fernando Valley slayings have increased 20% this year over the same period in 1997, and that many have occurred in the north Valley and are believed to be gang-related.

“I’m going to let him learn from this,” said Yvonne Archibald, whose son was among a group of about eight teenagers with Ricky when he was killed. She said she had not wanted her son to attend Friday night’s game because “there is too much stuff going on.”

The Monroe students were walking north on Aqueduct Avenue about 10 p.m. when the shooting occurred. The street was dark and, as they were returning to the school from a nearby gas station, they noticed a white Cadillac pull up slowly behind them, police said.

“A suspect inside the car asked, ‘Where are you from?’ ” Los Angeles Police Sgt. Dennis Feeley said, adding that the teens did not respond. Someone in the car yelled out, “Crenshaw!” before shots rang out. The youth was hit in the chest and died at the scene. The Cadillac, which had one headlight out, sped north on Aqueduct Avenue.

Police said the shooting had the classic markings of a gang slaying.

“They scream the name of the gang, this is where it comes from, and then bang, bang, bang, bang,” said Sgt. Rich Groller, officer in charge of the LAPD’s gang investigation unit, Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums. He added, however, that Ricky and his friends did not appear to be gang members.

Walking in a group once meant safety in numbers, but some fear it now can signify gang-banging, with groups becoming targets.

“Safety has got to come first,” said Lisa Keating, a former president of the Los Amigos Parent-Teacher Assn., which represents 17 schools in the north Valley. Keating said there needs to be more security at the night games.

“You have to meet the needs of the community; you have the homeowners, innocent bystanders. . . . I’m tired of hearing about people being struck by bullets. It’s out of control,” she said.

Los Angeles Unified School District Police Sgt. Kenny Davenport said the district beefs up security at playoff games, adding that schools themselves usually have little to do with violence on or near campuses. He said despite the shooting, Friday night football games are safe.

“The problem almost always comes from outside, we have relatively few problems with the students,” he said. “If you asked me Thursday did I anticipate any problems at the Monroe-Crenshaw game, no, no more than usual.”

As standard procedure, school district police will provide extra patrols at Monroe High School next week, Davenport said. A crisis team of counselors and psychologists also is expected to visit the school Monday.

Ricky Evan’s grieving relatives and friends said they will miss the youth’s smile and “goofy” sense of humor.

Friends said he was a talented drummer, playing all types of music, beating on anything handy, and improvising all sorts of rhythms. His favorite group was Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and he liked running around with friends.

“He looked up to me,” said Travina Shaw, 19, Ricky’s sister. When asked of her brother’s career aspirations, she smiled. “He wanted to be president,” she said.

Ricky played drums for “Ladies First & II Hype,” a drill team at the Pacoima Community Youth Culture Center, said Vickie Johnson, the team’s founder. The group competed against other drill teams in Southern California and performed at half-time shows at Clippers’ basketball games.

Ricky was expected to be one of four drummers for the team’s routine in the Pacoima Christmas Parade on Dec. 13 and the youth center’s upcoming 20th anniversary celebration. To mark the occasion, the center had planned a Dec. 6 “walk for peace” from Hubert Humphrey Memorial Park in Pacoima to Hansen Dam.

“He really loved playing the drums, that was his heart,” Johnson said.

The outgoing teen often teased the team with his tales of being signed to a major record label.

“He would kill us with those,” Johnson said, laughing. “I’d say, “Yeah, right.’ ”

Fields, the boyfriend of Ricky’s sister, said he knows all too well about gang violence. “I’ve had so many friends die I can’t even count,” Fields, of Pacoima, said.

He described Ricky as “his little brother” and said he felt especially close to the teenager because he doesn’t have a younger sibling of his own.

“It’s crazy. They need to catch those people and don’t let them out.”