‘I Feel Better Every Day’

In a small office at a center for people with learning disabilities in the South Bay, a one-on-one English lesson is taking place.

“What is your name?” the 32-year-old tutor asks in Spanish.

“My name is Luis,” the student, 21, replies in English.

There is nothing groundbreaking educationally about the lesson. No new techniques are being tested here that will revolutionize language instruction.

But there is one rather amazing fact: The teacher is Alfredo Perez, the instructor who was shot in the head in front of his class at the Figueroa Street Elementary School in South-Central Los Angeles.

Nearly two years after he was struck down by a stray bullet and given little chance for survival, Perez has made what many medical professionals say is a remarkable recovery.

Today, he will return to the Figueroa Street School for the “Yellow Brick Road School Safety Program,” an event designed to focus more attention on school safety.

Perez says he plans to visit the school library where on the morning of Feb. 22, 1996, he was transformed from an athletic fifth-grade teacher to a national symbol of urban violence.

A bullet that police say was meant for a rival gang member rocketed across Figueroa Street, smashed through a window and into his brain.

He is still far from fully recovered, and he will probably never get there, his doctors say. His left side is weak. He sometimes struggles for the right word. But for those who have been with him since the shooting, or as it is known in the Perez household, “the Accident,” his recovery has been a miracle.

“I feel better each day,” Perez said in a strong, clear voice during an interview at his two-story home in Torrance earlier this week.

Deeply religious, Perez, who can walk slowly without a cane, credits his faith for his recovery.

“If I speak to someone that does not know about God, I just tell them to hang in there because it can be a cruel world,” he said as he sat on a love seat next to his wife, Virginia. “Sometimes you’re dealt a good hand. Sometimes you’re dealt a bad hand. I was dealt a bad hand that day. But thanks to God and my wife and the support, I’ve come a long way.”

Dr. Rick Adams, director of rehabilitation at Long Beach Medical Center, thinks the former teacher will continue to improve.

“It’s pretty remarkable, and he hasn’t plateaued yet,” said Adams, who has worked with Perez since he was released from Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center a month after the shooting. “It’s amazing.” Adams is part of a support team that includes workers’ compensation lawyer and family friend Sherry Grant, who persuaded the Los Angeles Unified School District to provide a van and four-wheel scooter for Perez. Another team member is Marina del Rey-based Head Injury Rehabilitation Services, which provides physical and speech therapy.

Connie Kuhn, a rehabilitation services speech pathologist who works with Perez, said the English lessons he gives are a learning experience for the student and the teacher.

“This is really good for his communication skills,” Kuhn said. “Every lesson he gets better.”

Although Perez has said that he definitely would return to school as a teacher, he now sees his future in a different light.

“I used to think I would be back, but now I’m just taking it one day at a time,” he said. For the last two months, a typical day for Perez has included a simple pleasure he had not had since he was shot--being home alone.

His wife, Virginia, who had left her job as a teacher to help him recover, has returned to teaching at an elementary school in Huntington Park. So for two hours in the morning before the first therapist arrives, Perez has the house to himself.

“It’s nice to be alone for a change,” Perez said as he smiled at his wife, who makes his lunch before she heads off to school.

Sometimes he plays games on his computer. And he is looking forward to corresponding with others via the Internet. At church and at shopping malls, Perez is often approached by well-wishers, his wife said.

“This waitress at Chili’s came up to us and she said, ‘You’re my role model,’ and she started crying. Then she bought us lunch,” Virginia Perez said.

She is thrilled that her husband is doing so well and delighted that he has retained his sense of humor.

“One of Alfredo’s best friends told me he didn’t know how he could handle being around Alfredo if his sense of humor didn’t come back,” she said.

A few minutes later in his living room, as his wife and friends laughed, a deadpan Perez nearly convinced a visitor that he had made a nearby elaborate marble lamp in wood shop class at the rehab center.

Later, he feigned fear when he learned the name of the street gang that police say is responsible for the crime.

“Oh, they’re Bloods?” he said in mock horror. “Now, I’m really scared.”

Two suspected gang members, Frazier Francis and Antonio Moses, both 19, have been tried twice for attempted murder in connection with Perez’s shooting. Both trials ended in mistrials after the juries were unable to reach a verdict.

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In both trials, the key witness changed his testimony. He originally told police he saw one of the suspects fire the shot that hit Perez. He later testified that he only heard the shot and did not see the gunman.

Perez says he is not vengeful toward the young men accused of shooting him.

“I forgive them whether they were guilty or not,” he said. “They have to answer to someone else in the afterlife.”

Perez recently started acupuncture treatments for his much-weakened left arm and leg. With effort, he can raise his left hand to shoulder level. His physical therapist, Marion Ipenburg, has begun timing his walks around his neighborhood. He has lowered his time for the roughly quarter-mile block more than a minute to 7 minutes, 12 seconds, he said.

“She walks behind me with a stick and whacks me sometimes,” Perez joked.

As one of Perez’s tutoring sessions at the rehabilitation center ended recently, his student, Luis, smiled.

“Next week, you’re coming here?” he asked in broken English.

Alfredo Perez smiled warmly.

“Yes, I’ll be here.”