Raising Their Eyes to Meet a Victim’s

There is a school library named after him, and thousands of dollars in books have been donated in his memory. A charitable foundation carries his name to highlight good works done by children his age.

And in some of Southern California’s toughest juvenile jails, his parents’ account of his life--and death--is inspiring even hardened gangbangers to change.

Evan Leigh Foster was only 7 when he died, another innocent victim of gang violence. And his parents, Ruett and Rhonda Foster, have spent the four years since trying to wring some good from the loss of a son who was not only his family’s, but his community’s, pride.

He was, by all accounts, a delightful child. He took art classes and music lessons, played soccer and basketball, shined in school and loved Sunday school class. And he doted on his baby brother, Alec.

The boys were at an Inglewood park, where Evan had just picked up his soccer trophy--and a medal for good sportsmanship--when a fusillade of bullets fired by gang members pierced his head and struck his baby brother.

Evan bled to death in his mother’s arms. Alec was blinded in one eye. “We were devastated,” Rhonda Foster says. “I felt so much rage against the world.” The couple’s strong faith in God kept them from plunging into despair. “We both chose to trust and follow God and the inspiration He would give us to bring good out of evil,” Rhonda says.

The three young men who killed her son were arrested and ultimately pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to 20-plus years in jail. Ruett and Rhonda attended every court hearing and spoke of redemption, not revenge, even though the killers sneered at them, threw gang signs, and one even yelled when he pleaded guilty, “There, you got what you wanted. You happy now?”

In the meantime, the Fosters received a phone call asking if they’d be willing to speak to inmates at the California Youth Authority, as part of its Victim Impact Program aimed at turning young offenders away from crime. They began meeting regularly with incarcerated youths, carting along Evan’s pictures and poems, photos of him in his Batman pajamas, at his preschool graduation, embracing his baby brother.

Their goal is to force these young men--jailed for offenses ranging from robbery and assault to murder--to connect on an emotional level with the consequences of their crimes. “We tell them ‘We’re here to give you some insight into what happens when you pull that trigger, the way it changes people’s lives,’” Ruett Foster says.

“The first thing I tell them is ‘I want to know your name, your age and what you did. Not what the judge sentenced you for or what the police say you did, but what you did.’ They have to take ownership of it; that’s the first step toward accountability.”

The couple talk about their life with Evan, “how we loved being at home with our boys, what Evan was like, the promise he had. Then we tell them what our life has been like since he died ... the emptiness, the pain, how much his baby brother misses him.”

And they make clear that just as their recovery requires them to accept the reality of Evan’s death, these young men cannot begin to heal until they stop making excuses for what they’ve done.

“Some of them want to rationalize,” Rhonda says. “They say ‘Well, I wasn’t aiming for you. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’” Her voice trembles. “We were not in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she tells them. “We were just living our lives. We were doing what we were supposed to do. You were the one with a gun. We’re paying the price for what you did wrong.”

The sessions are hard on them, the Fosters admit. But they’re convinced that these young men can be moved away from the violence that’s marked their lives, ruptured their communities and caused families like theirs immeasurable pain.

“We see so much potential in some of these young men,” Ruett says, displaying letters and poems they’ve written and drawings they’ve made of Evan. “They have to be taught to imagine a different kind of life ... shown that hardship and tragedy don’t have to befall them.”

Ruett Foster is no bleeding heart, no soft touch. He’s a social worker who runs an agency for foster children in South Los Angeles, and often spends evenings and weekends counseling troubled youths.

He knows what he’s up against. “A lot of these young men, all they’ve been hearing all their lives is ‘You’re no good, you’re a zero, you’re a washout, you’re stupid.’ Many of them have no positive adult influences in their lives. You’d be surprised at what they don’t know about what’s appropriate behavior, how to show love to somebody, to communicate, to connect.”

The sight of Foster on his juvenile hall visits, sobbing as he speaks of his son, often moves young swaggering toughs to tears. “A lot of these guys have kids of their own,” he says. “Some of them tell me later, ‘Man, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how much it must hurt to be you.’”

That is a good first step, he says. But there is so much more that needs to be done. We need tougher laws, the Fosters say, to keep guns like the assault weapon that killed their son out of the hands of street thugs. And we need to intervene earlier in the lives of at-risk kids, to keep them from growing up disaffected and violent.

The Fosters are encouraged by the small changes they’ve seen ... the young men who have stayed in touch, the ones who sent letters to be read at the youth conference held earlier this month by the Evan Leigh Foster Foundation.

And by the former gang member who showed up unexpectedly and shyly took to the stage to address hundreds of kids about the perils of crime--the way one rash moment, one stupid mistake, can end a life and change others’ forever. He shot a man to death at age 14, as he and his friends were trying to get away after a liquor store robbery. He spent almost 10 years locked up for his crime.

After meeting the Fosters two years ago, he vowed to turn his life around. “I feel like I owe you,” he told the Fosters.

Their campaign has helped the Fosters deal with the pain of their loss. “It’s therapeutic,” Ruett says. “And we know now, even though we never would have chosen this, it is where we were meant to be.”

But what these young men need most is something even the Fosters can’t give them, though it’s what they gave their young son. What Evan had is what every young child needs--love, attention, opportunity. And that comes best not from programs and agencies, but healthy families.

Sandy Banks’ column runs Tuesdays and Sundays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.