Residents Grapple With Fears After Slaying at Park

Nobody is supposed to get shot to death after a pickup basketball game--especially in a nice neighborhood.

That’s where the people of Blair Hills in Culver City thought they lived, and it scared them when 28-year-old Nichol Watson was killed during an argument on the court two weekends ago.

It scared them even more when they learned that both the victim and his assailant were gang members from Southwest Los Angeles, about five miles away, who frequented the park because they considered it a safe haven.

On the day of the killing, the small eucalyptus-ringed park was filled with families enjoying a sunny Sunday after weeks of rain. Today, parents refuse to let their children play there. Bullet holes pockmark the deserted blacktop. A large stain left by the chemicals used to clean up the blood has blurred the free-throw line.

On Tuesday night, 100 residents of the 188-home community gathered to yell at police--and sometimes at themselves--and make plans to turn their neighborhood into yet another gate-guarded community.

Police insisted that the March 15 shooting was a random incident. They believe that Watson, a member of the Rolling 60s gang, was killed by a fellow gang member who was himself shot to death the next day--apparently in retaliation--as he walked down a street in Southwest L.A.

“This is not a crime wave going through the community,” Det. Tom Gabore of the Culver City Police Department told residents at Tuesday’s meeting. “Your neighborhood is so safe, it attracts the wrong element.”

To eliminate that element, Milton Philipson suggested banning basketball at the park. Players from other neighborhoods cause parking problems, are noisy and litter the street with alcohol containers after they play, he complained.

“This has been going on for years up there,” said Philipson. “We don’t want games that produce violence.”

His proposal was booed by other neighbors.

“I have nine grandsons who love to shoot hoops,” objected Karen Wolitarsky. “Where else can they go?”

The discussion echoed a controversy in another part of Culver City. The day after the Blair Hills shooting, city-sponsored, supervised basketball was reinstituted at Fox Hills Park, in the city’s southern end, where the game had been banned since the early 1980s.

The City Council--under pressure from Fox Hills residents who complained of noise and crime problems they believed were associated with the players--voted in 1981 to take down the basketball hoops for a 90-day trial period.

They stayed down for nearly 17 years, longer than most of the players who showed up at the newly striped courts on March 16 have been alive.

The council’s original vote against basketball drew accusations of racism and political favoritism, because park neighbors were primarily white and the players primarily black.

But at a council meeting this January, the opposition of the Fox Hills residents was drowned out by the voices of basketball supporters.

During that meeting, Councilman Richard Marcus mused about what it would be like to be a kid living next to a park where basketball was prohibited.

“It’s something short of torture,” Marcus said. “It would drive me nuts.”

There were no overt racial overtones at Tuesday night’s Blair Hills meeting. The community is racially mixed, and even those who proposed banning basketball took pains to say they were not targeting any racial group.

Other residents recommended solving the problem by making the park off-limits to anyone wearing gang-style clothes or sporting tattoos.

Lt. Ray Scheu said that would be illegal.

“To an extent our hands are tied,” said Scheu. “There’s no law saying you can’t be a member of a gang.”

Mayor Albert Vera assured the assembly that if they called the Police Department to report suspicious cars or individuals, a patrol car would be immediately dispatched to the area.

“Ha! I called for years and nothing happened,” scoffed a man who said he was in the park with his two little girls the day of the shooting.

“You’re doing nothing to keep our children safe! That could have been my daughters the other day!” he said, rising out of his seat, his voice choked with anger.

“I’m here to help you, not to argue with you,” Vera responded curtly. He promised to donate “neighborhood watch” patrol signs to the neighborhood, even though Blair Hills has no neighborhood watch group. A block captain sign-up sheet was passed around.

Other suggestions included closing the park, locking down the basketball court at certain times of day and imposing fines for misbehavior.

But at the end of the meeting, a show of hands reflected overwhelming support for placing gates on the two streets that lead into the neighborhood.

After the meeting, Mason and Ruth Frazier talked about how they regretfully plan to keep their 15-year-old son, Christopher, well away from the park.

“We’re very much concerned and upset that we can’t allow him to go to the park to play basketball anymore,” said Ruth Frazier, shaking her head. “We’ve always felt safe here.”