Consequences of a Tragedy

The monuments to Stephanie Raygoza are all over South Clarence Street: freshly pruned trees, new street lamps and speed bumps. She is cast as an angel in a painting that will hang at Dolores Mission Catholic Church.

In the weeks after the girl’s death in a drive-by shooting, Stephanie is the neighborhood’s newest saint, credited with resurrecting a long-neglected corner of Boyle Heights.

The neighborhood has finally gotten some attention at the instigation of neighbors who were strangers before the killing of the 10-year-old girl brought them together:

* City building inspectors, county probation officers and police have begun searching abandoned homes on South Clarence Street, which are known as gathering places for users of illegal drugs.

* Residents once too afraid to offend gang members are petitioning the city to close off an alley often used as a drug supermarket and a getaway route after drive-by shootings.

* Mounted police patrol the area, which is home to three rival gangs. Police arrested Sylvia Silva, 20, the alleged driver, shortly after the Oct. 8 shooting, which also killed Raymond Hernandez, 19. Five men remain at large, and a $25,000 reward will be paid for information leading to their capture.

“Maybe it was Stephanie that moved [city officials] and made them get up to see where we’ve been living all this time,” said Rita Chairez, a resident of 10 years who has lost two brothers to gun violence, one of them earlier this month.

“Maybe she said: ‘Fix my community,’ and they realized we’re human beings here,” Chairez said.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and City Councilman Nick Pacheco, who represents the area, which is just east of downtown, agreed that the outrage caused by the shooting forced the city to notice. It drew a broad grass-roots response, they said, the required catalyst for change that had been lacking for years.

“If you’re not organized and you don’t take responsibility for making your neighborhood better, government will always fail you,” Riordan said in an interview.

“If they have a desire, if they have leadership, we’ll bring in the police to work on street safety,” he said. “We will be on their side. If they don’t take any responsibility, it’s going to languish.”

Said Pacheco: “Real change in the community is going to come from within.”

Consuelo Valdez, an organizer for Dolores Mission’s nonprofit Proyecto Pastoral, said she and other activists have been trying for years to call attention to local problems. Their efforts, she said, have produced little.

When Riordan, Pacheco and other city officials toured the neighborhood after the shooting, one of Pacheco’s aides said the neighborhood looked rundown, Valdez recalled.

Street lamps were so dirty that they barely gave light, trees hung over sidewalks and graffiti was everywhere. Valdez said she told the aide: “Yes, remember? We met with you about this a few months ago.”

On the busy streets near two elementary schools, she and others had asked for speed bumps to deter drive-by shootings, but bureaucratic confusion between the city Department of Transportation and the Housing Authority has stalled the improvements.

Residents say they would still be waiting if not for the killing of Stephanie, who was riding a scooter on her way home from a store.

Her mother, Norma Rubalcaba, recalled the tragedy. “I didn’t know Stephanie was in the street.” Like many neighborhood parents, Rubalcaba did not allow Stephanie or her four other children outside. Stephanie usually played in her cousins’ backyard next door, dancing to pop singer Shakira or playing school.

Moments after family members rushed Stephanie to the hospital, neighbors said, Rubalcaba wandered through the street, wringing her hands and murmuring, “What do I do? What do I do?”

The sight moved neighbors to organize. It was as if they were seeing their community--and their neighbors--for the first time.

Rigoberto Hernandez, Stephanie’s uncle, found himself talking about neighborhood problems to a man standing near his home the day after the shooting.

“I asked him, ‘Where do you live?’ He said: ‘Here, next door to you,’ ” Hernandez recalled. “None of us here knew each other. We would just come home from work and stay inside. We just ignored everything that went on outside, because they were killing themselves, not the innocent.”

Despite the progress, fear remains on South Clarence Street.

While seeking enough signatures to win city approval to seal off an alley, Hernandez said, several neighbors hesitated to offend gang members, asking, “Aren’t you afraid they will see you doing this?”

Police said such trepidation hinders their work and keeps them from solving crimes. Neighbors said police are insensitive to the dangers of testifying as witnesses. “We’re the ones who have to live here,” Chairez said.

Los Angeles Police Capt. Paul Pesqueira, who heads the Hollenbeck Division, acknowledged: “It can be frustrating.”

Michael Garcia, a former gang member and a cousin of Raymond Hernandez, said the community will never change until it does more to help teenagers get off the streets.

Garcia complained that Hernandez’s death has been obscured by Stephanie’s.

“They were both tragedies,” said Garcia. Hernandez--a high school dropout who sold drugs in the neighborhood--left behind a 4-year-old daughter whom he was supporting, Garcia said.

“The city is doing all this so the people here will stop making noise,” Garcia said. “After all the attention is gone, boom, the exact same thing will be happening.”

Neighbors like Claudia Martinon want to keep the pressure on city officials.

Since the city installed energy-saving street lamps that do little to brighten dark corners with their soft pink hue, she and other neighbors have been demanding new fixtures.

“They don’t understand,” she said. “We don’t want the pretty lights. We want lights that are going to help us to see what’s happening here.”