Family Mourns, City Reels From ‘Senseless’ Death

Raul Aguirre had a favorite piece of clothing, a Mexican soccer jersey that he wore to school Friday to mark Cinco de Mayo. It now has four knife holes in it.

Raul hadn’t been in a gang, police said. He didn’t have any tattoos. After school, he worked at Taco Bell to help pay the rent on the one-bedroom apartment he shared with five other family members.

Police, school officials and family said 17-year-old Raul had steered clear of trouble in his working-class Glendale neighborhood and was going to graduate from Hoover High School next month and join the Marines.

But Raul was killed Friday after being stabbed twice in the heart and twice in the back and clubbed on the head with a tire iron in what police said was a gang-related fight.

The violence started at Hoover High about an hour after class let out and ended across the street at a middle school in front of about 40 children.

While Hoover High has been grappling with tensions between Latino and Armenian American students for several years, police say this is the first time a student had been killed in Glendale because of those hostilities.

“We’ve had a reluctance on the part of many people to recognize that this is an issue,” Glendale Sgt. Rick Young said. “Unfortunately, a boy had to lose his life before some people would wake up.”

Raul intervened in the fight, taking the side of a Latino boy who had been jumped by two Armenian American teens, police said. The Armenian American boys and the Latino youth were gang members, and the fight erupted after they had flashed gang signs, police said.

“Senseless,” said Hoover Assistant Principal Sarah O’Reilly. “That’s what I keep coming back to--how senseless this was. Raul was a really good kid. Did these boys know they were taking a life?”

The two Armenian American boys, ages 17 and 15, and a 14-year-old girl were booked Friday on suspicion of murder. The 17-year-old had been expelled from Hoover, police said. None of them knew Raul, authorities said.

It was the second time in two years that a Hoover student was killed just off campus, authorities said. In September 1998, a student died in a fight between Armenian American teenagers. A Latino was not involved.

But some Hoover students and recent graduates said the 2,800-student school is ethnically polarized between the two groups. They don’t mingle much in the cafeteria or in the yard, and often when there’s an argument between a Latino and an Armenian American, more students get involved, splitting along ethnic lines.

“I’ve known about Armenians fighting Hispanics ever since I was in junior high,” said Asin Smith, a 22-year-old black man, who graduated from Hoover four years ago. “It’s just part of the culture.”

The trouble started Friday at 3:45 p.m. as Raul was waiting for a bus to take him to work. Two Armenian American boys pulled up in a car and flashed gang signs at a Latino boy whom Raul casually knew, who also was waiting at the bus stop, Young said.

The two Armenian Americans then stepped out of the car and attacked the Latino boy, police said. Raul jumped in, and the fight spilled across the street to a sidewalk in front of Toll Middle School, Young said.

The 15-year-old Armenian American boy ran back to the car, grabbed a tire iron, and in front of a crowd of 40 middle school and high school students, allegedly struck Raul across the face, Young said. Then the other Armenian American boy allegedly stabbed Raul four times with a small knife, leaving him on the sidewalk, he said.

The teens then fled, including the Latino youth whom police would not identify. Raul was taken to County/USC Medical Center, where he died two hours later.

The Armenian American boys--the 17-year-old is from Glendale and the 15-year-old is from North Hollywood--and the 14-year-old Los Angeles girl who was allegedly driving the car, were arrested hours later.

All three are in custody at Eastlake Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles.

Leo Reynoso, a 19-year-old cousin of Raul, said Raul was jumped two years ago by Armenian Americans in front of a fast-food restaurant.

Herbert Petrosyan, a recent Hoover graduate who is Armenian American, agreed there are ethnic tensions. But it cuts both ways, he said, with Latinos sometimes instigating the violence.

“I don’t know what causes it,” said Petrosyan, who now leads ethnic awareness workshops for the Glendale-based We Care for Youth organization. “Maybe it’s all the different clubs at the school that promote Armenian and Latino causes, or maybe it’s just that the two cultures are pretty different.”

For decades Latinos were the dominant minority in Glendale. But with a massive wave of immigration within the last 20 years, Young says Armenian Americans have become the new “majority minority” in Glendale, now about 35% of the city’s population.

The problem is not just at school. Many newly arrived families live in overcrowded apartments in the southwestern part of the city and buildings are typically split by race.

“I see [prejudice] everywhere I go,” Young said. “I see hatred projected through little statements and looks.”

Frank Quintero, chairman of the Glendale Youth Alliance, said the community should focus on more activities that will bridge the ethnic divide. He also thinks Glendale should come to grips with its gang problem.

“All of the various youth programs need to be focused on kids who are gangbangers,” he said.

Glendale Councilman Gus Gomez said he thinks the city needs to get involved in healing the rift between the two ethnic groups.

Gomez said he will ask Councilman Rafi Manoukian, who is of Armenian descent, to join him in leading a citywide effort. “Rafi and I are leaders within our ethnic communities. We need to do something to help improve the level of cultural understanding,” Gomez said.

Glendale school board Vice President Pam Ellis offered some ideas to help stop the after-school violence, such as closing Glenwood Road and School Street during after-school hours. Ellis said she has lobbied for that change for nine years to keep away troublemaking teens who don’t attend Hoover.

School officials met with about 180 students Saturday afternoon to talk about the tensions on campus.

She said her 12-year-old daughter was among the crowd of children who witnessed Raul’s death.

“When a child dies in a community, the community should be outraged,” Ellis said. “

Earlier Saturday, Raul’s family filed out of their apartment, where Raul had slept on a cot in the living room, and drove to the sidewalk memorial that marked where he was killed.

His mother, an office assistant, and his father, who works in a kitchen making frozen pizzas, didn’t talk much as they left. Their steps were slow; their eyes glazed with grief.

The sidewalk was filled with candles, sweet-smelling incense, flowers and cards. Leticia Aguirre, Raul’s mother, nearly buckled as she approached.

“Why didn’t somebody stop this?” she cried.