A Conflicted Portrait of Slain Activist

The longtime companion of James Richards, the Westside community activist who was shot to death this week in what some have called an assassination, called Friday for Venice to unify in a fight against violence.

“People should not let this incident stop them,” Cynthia Jean Moore said as she made funeral arrangements for Richards. “In fact, it is my hope this will only bring people out of their houses, and bring them together.”

Moore’s request came as the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a resolution providing a $25,000 reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of Richards’ killer. Police said they have no new leads in the case.

On the streets of Venice, however, some residents said the killer will never be identified, particularly because the shooting took place at night on one of Venice’s darkest streets. Others said they doubted whether the community will be outraged by the death of man known as much for his controversial methods as his good works.

Richards, the publisher of Neighborhood News, an online newsletter focusing on crime and the community, was a lightning rod in Venice, particularly in the sometimes rough-and-tumble Oakwood neighborhood where he lived.

Depending on who was talking, Richards was characterized after his death as either a gutsy neighborhood hero bent on chasing away gangs, or a zealous police informant who overstepped his bounds in trying to stop crime.

“This guy did more good for Venice than just about anyone,” said Chris Williams, who has been involved in police-sponsored Neighborhood Watch efforts with Richards for about five years. Richards was “a guy trying to lift Venice on his shoulders,” Williams said.

Melvyn Hayward Sr., director of the Vera Davis McClendon Community Center, said: “Jim thought he was a . . . police officer. He had a big mouth. He took it beyond just being a block captain--and he paid. It was just a matter of time.”

Richards’ time ran out early Wednesday.

Retuning from his daily workout at an all-night gym about 4:15 a.m., he was shot several times as he got out of his camper van in front of his home.

The 55-year-old house painter and property manager died at the scene.

Police and neighbors said they are not sure what happened. They said Richards could have been the victim of random violence. Then again, he may well have been targeted because of his anti-crime work.

Hayward, known for his work with gang members, said Richards was regarded with the utmost suspicion, even hated, by many residents. He said the bitterness was felt as much by troublemakers as by law-abiding citizens. “He just got in people’s faces, and people didn’t appreciate it,” Hayward said.

The negative feelings stem in part from the aggressive tactics Richards used to try to identify criminals and gather news for his newsletter, Hayward said.

Richards was a member of several police-sponsored community groups. He was a Neighborhood Watch block captain, part of a police advisory group, and a key member of a small cadre of residents who monitored gang activity.

He slept next to police scanners so he could respond to crime calls 24 hours a day. Many Oakwood residents said they frequently saw him sneaking through alleyways, looking for crimes he was sure were occurring just around the corner. But often, he found nothing.

Some residents described how Richards walked up to small groups of youths on street corners and photographed them, gathering information for police.

A woman renting an apartment that Richards managed said he had barged into her unit a number of times in the last several years. He told her he wanted to take pictures of drug deals from her front window without being seen.

“I’d open the door and he’d bolt through,” said Carol West, who lives with her three daughters. “I didn’t want to be associated with his activities. He was putting me in danger.”

Underneath the anti-Richards sentiment, said some, is a thorny issue dogging Venice: race.

Richards was a white man going out of his way to slow crime in a racially mixed area. Although Moore, his longtime companion, is black, and though he would champion the success of local African Americans on his Internet site, many felt he lacked sensitivity toward minority groups.

He thought that if he saw a group of young minority youths on a street corner, “they must be gang members,” said Shearwood Fleming, a 64-year-old Baptist preacher who was so angered by Richards that he sometimes took a video camera through the neighborhood to tape Richards doing his surveillance.

“He’d print vicious, negative things,” said Jataun Valentine, a block captain who lives just down the street from Richards’ Vernon Avenue home.

While some of Richards’ supporters concede that the journalism in his newsletters was sometimes sloppy--”He could be a little loose with his facts,” said screenwriter John Derevlany. “I thought he would end up getting sued for slander”--the publication had a regular readership that came to rely on Richards for a sense of life in Venice.

The newsletter focused on crime. Richards, alerted by his police radio, was often on the scene before officers. Once there, Richards became a reporter, asking questions and searching for clues.

Richards also reported on local traffic accidents, neighborhood cleanups, youth groups and community meetings, and his postings included observations from residents with a wide range of opinions.

Recent newsletters carried news and profiles on a broad spectrum of the Venice community, and the stories were generally written with an even hand.

“He was a journalist,” said Jim Hubbard, a former UPI photographer who teaches children’s art classes at the Vera Davis McClendon center.

Hubbard said he had heard street rumors in recent weeks that Richards was going to be killed.

“I just don’t think he knew the consequences of writing news like he did and living in the community he was writing about,” Hubbard said.

His supporters said Richards was a private man whom few knew well. Because he said little about his life, they said they were not sure how aggressive he was in gathering information. Unlike his critics, they were reluctant to pass judgment.

“All of the stories about him may or may not be true,” said Carol Tantau-Smith, a member of one of the community police groups Richards belonged to and a longtime friend. “To me he has mellowed over the years and some of these behaviors I hear about are indicative of what he would do in the past. . . . The police definitely warn us not to get as involved in stopping crime as you hear Jim was.”

Supporter Chris Williams said much of the Venice community would respond to the killing by banding together. “We’ve got to respond. If we give up now, the bad guys have won.”

He said he has received dozens of e-mails and messages lamenting the loss of the newsletter. “Jim’s writing was a community lifeline,” he said. “It was real news.”