United by Bigness of Heart

One of the Memorial Day weekend murder victims might have been savoring the arrival of one more summer season to enjoy with his wheelchair-bound wife of 63 years, who was slain with him. A third murder victim, just short of her 21st birthday, might have been looking ahead to a lifetime of summers. The three were among the five people in Los Angeles County murdered over the course of a holiday meant for remembrance and celebration.

The three were connected not only by the nearness of the murder sites but by their ties to the soul and rich political culture of Los Angeles.

Albert Patton, 90, and his wife, Edna, 85, were longtime South Los Angeles philanthropists who welcomed a steady stream of the city’s future elite into the apartment building they had owned since 1961. The late Mayor Tom Bradley lived there when he was a Los Angeles police officer, as Joe Louis and Wilt Chamberlain had before. Patton helped develop the Harlem Globetrotters and co-founded the national 100 Black Men organization for disadvantaged youths.

Old and frail and defenseless, he and his wife were murdered in their home Saturday night, just a short distance from where Lori Gonzalez was shot to death the next night at a drive-through restaurant. Gonzalez was the granddaughter of Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks. Parks’ career owes something to the influence and largess of people like Patton, who helped smooth the way for those who came before.

Gonzalez was a hard-working college student who found time to teach Sunday school and once helped build homes for poor people in Tijuana. All three were cut down by senseless violence, but each had managed to contribute something significant to their communities. Their bigness of heart makes their violent deaths a greater loss.