Make the Parks Gang-Free

Marquese Rashad Prude’s mother knew that the hours between school and dinnertime were when kids were most likely to get into trouble. So every day since Marquese was little she sent him to a safe haven--her South Los Angeles neighborhood’s recreation center at St. Andrews Park. And it worked. At 13, Marquese shunned gangs and dreamed of becoming a lawyer or an NBA star. Or he did until the afternoon a suspected gang member breached the haven and shot the first person he saw: a youngster doing his best to stay out of harm’s way.

Los Angeles police must find the person who shot Marquese and let gangsters--and parents desperate for help in raising their kids--know that this city will not tolerate the killing of children in the sanctuary of a recreation center or park.

Shocked city park directors described St. Andrews as the best recreation center in the south district. After what happened Nov. 28, they need to boost security and staffing levels and improve staff training. And they must work even harder to make sure that gangs and guns have absolutely no place at St. Andrews or any other park or recreation center.

On Wednesday, a week after Marquese was killed, Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks and City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas walked the streets around St. Andrews passing out cards with telephone numbers to call to provide information. This high-profile cortege exhorted residents, as Ridley-Thomas so eloquently put it, to “a deeper level of outrage and a higher level of intolerance” for violence. If there is to be a haven for children, their message is not just for one neighborhood.