Aliso Village Violence Claims 2 New Victims

When the semiautomatic gunfire rattled out behind them, 12-year-old Roberto Villapanda turned to see what was happening while his cousin Jesse Urias ran for cover.

In the silence that followed, Jesse crouched behind some trash cans, then stepped cautiously into the street.

Just a few doors from where they were headed, he found Roberto lying on the lawn, quiet, like he was looking for stars in the cold night.

A medium-caliber bullet had ripped through the boy’s torso, breaking his spinal cord, family members said. A 22-year-old man lay just feet away, groaning in the gutter with a hole in his leg.

Both are the latest victims of what has been a violent couple of months in the Aliso Village housing project in the flats of Boyle Heights.

Roberto, whom friends and family described as a precociously bright and funny boy who was just starting to discover girls, died early Wednesday morning at White Memorial Medical Center. The 22-year-old, who police speculate was the target of the attack, died several hours later.

The two cousins were walking to Jesse’s house to spend the night. It was unclear whether they were walking with the man or whether he just happened to be nearby.

Police released few details about the shooting, but said they suspect that it was gang-related. Police said Roberto was not affiliated with a gang, but did not disclose information about the other victim.

Wednesday morning, scores of residents gathered around votive candles, photos and roses next to the clumps of coagulated blood where the two victims fell. The adults cried and talked and remembered Roberto as a well-known boy who grew up joking and riding his bike in front of their homes. The children sat silently in front of the shrines, looking confused.

“They killed my cousin,” one young boy said.

Roberto’s grandmother, Lupe Urias, who was raising him, scooped up a shovelful of dirt and covered her grandson’s blood, too distraught to talk.

Father Gregory Boyle, who works closely with youths in the project, kept vigil with Roberto’s family at the hospital and later comforted them and neighbors at the shooting site. He knew Roberto well, saying the youth had emerged from a bleak family situation to become a popular, charming and diligent boy with a bright future.

“He used to come to my office and say, ‘Do you have work today?’ ” Boyle recalled, smiling at the thought. “I paid him $5 to clean some windows that had been cleaned 18 times before.

“He’d just come up with this stuff that would have us laughing, laughing, laughing.”

Roberto, a student at Hollenbeck Middle School, recently started talking about girls he thought were cute, and loved to tell the church staff of his new crushes.

“He was a personality-plus,” Boyle said. “He was the opposite of a hard kid.”

Abraham Urias most remembered Malibu beach trips with his older cousin, how they snacked on chips and how Roberto carried him on his shoulders. He heard the shots just after 10 p.m. Tuesday night and ran outside to see the victim lying on the lawn.

“I cried,” the young boy said. “I didn’t want to look.”

Despite a widespread drop in violent crime citywide, residents of the ailing cream-colored project said the sound of gunshots is common in the neighborhood. Many women said that aside from walking to the store and back, they hole up in their apartments with their children for fear of rogue bullets. They only congregate on somber days like this.

“Almost every day--in plain day--they are shooting,” said Maria, 60, who asked that her last name be withheld.

Rosa Mejia, 30, said she lives in fear and can’t wait to leave the neighborhood, which is tentatively scheduled to be demolished by the housing authority for possible reconstruction.

“This is not just,” she said. “There are innocents dying.”

Most recently, on July 25, a gang member shot and killed two rivals in the project before kidnapping, raping and killing his own girlfriend, police said.

Boyle said the violence is a symptom of deeper social problems in an impoverished and neglected community.

“This community doesn’t want to demonize these kids,” Boyle said. “They want to ask, ‘What does this tell us about the despair our kids feel? What does this say about kids who have problems conjuring up the future?’ ”