Families Decry Wide Attention to Death of Chief’s Granddaughter

Beverly Billingslea has borne the almost unimaginable pain of watching her 31-year-old son remain bedridden in a coma since he was struck by a hit-and-run driver last July.

Rita Norwood has grappled with the anguish of burying her 19-year-old son, a beloved 18-year-old nephew and, just nine months ago, her fiance.

So when Lori Gonzalez, the 20-year-old granddaughter of Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, was slain outside a restaurant on May 28, Billingslea and Norwood said their hearts went out to his family.

But they cannot understand why the unsolved cases of their loved ones have not received the same amount of attention from police, city officials or media.

“You don’t treat murders differently,” said Norwood. “It’s like if you don’t have no money or live in the right community, you don’t get no attention.”

It was the striking contrast between high-profile victims of crime and their lesser-known counterparts that motivated the parents and relatives of those slain in South Los Angeles to speak out Monday in Leimert Park. They called on the LAPD and other city agencies to devote the same levels of resources in investigating the cases of their loved ones as are employed on high-profile cases like Parks’ granddaughter.

“The lives of poor blacks and Latinos are just as important as anyone else’s,” said Melvin Farmer, vice president of the National Alliance for Positive Action, which organized the news conference. “The press and city officials should treat them with equal importance.”

Organizers of the speak-out called Los Angeles city officials to convene a so-called emergency summit on violence in response to a recent rash of murders in South and Central Los Angeles with the goal of providing more funding and programs to reduce youth violence, Farmer said.

“If we can spend money for jails and police, we can spend money on services for youth,” said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, director of NAPA. “We see a lot of hand wringing and grief [in the wake of Lori Gonzalez’s murder], but the big question is what are we going to do about it?”

Billingslea said she hopes more community resources come about, but she also would like to see more money put into beefing up the number of homicide detectives working on unsolved cases. Her son’s case has passed through the hands of three detectives and they are too busy to call her. “They don’t call me, I have to call them,” she said.

It’s the same frustration Norwood has felt since her fiance, Larry Horns, was gunned down last August as he walked between two apartment buildings he managed.

Norwood was so desperate to catch the suspect that she wanted authorities to put out a reward. But none was offered.

Summing up the message of Monday’s session, Hutchinson said: “These people are faceless and nameless. They may get one shot on late-night TV, but violence is violence and every life is important.”