Another, Closer War

To today’s talk of war and civilian casualties, add the names of Torry, Michael and Christopher Florence. In a span of days, the three brothers died in drive-by shootings, the victims of gangs that terrorize their Inglewood neighborhood and so many others in Southern California.

Christopher, 21, went first, shot as he drove through his hometown. Two nights later, Torry, 29, and Michael, 27, set out to learn what they could about his death. As they waited for a red light, a car pulled up beside them and a gunman opened fire.

The older brothers’ search for answers was as unwise as their anguish was understandable. But, police stressed, none of the three were in gangs. Longtime neighbors said more: a close-knit family with a fourth, teenage son. Considerate young men who took care of their widowed mother and who hugged each other “coming and going.”

Inglewood has had 25 gang-related homicides so far this year, nine more than in all of 2000. In Los Angeles, almost half the 241 homicides in the first half of this year were linked to gangs. Police attribute the spike in part to changing demographics: The number of 14-to-24-year-olds, considered the most crime-prone group, declined in the early 1990s but is now growing. Also, a record number of parolees jailed in past gang crackdowns are being released from prisons.

Gang mayhem is often confined to poor areas and hence invisible to those not directly affected, much as terrorism in the Middle East was once background--news stories to note with dismay before turning the page.

Police on Tuesday arrested a suspect, believed to be a gang member, in the deaths of Torry and Michael. No doubt mothers citywide took encouragement from this and redoubled their hopes that law officers will intensify their war on all such homegrown purveyors of terror. But prevention too is called for.

Marian Wright Edelman, head of the Children’s Defense Fund, year after year promotes legislation to fight the poverty in which gangs thrive. She has hope that what happened Sept. 11 will finally awaken Americans to the cries from within their nation’s own war zones. “As we all realize there are no safe havens in our lives,” she told The Times last week, “we will see the people in our midst for whom this is a daily concern and help those children who are living in terror and abuse every day.”

People may finally hear, she might have added, the keen of grief from those like Brenda Florence, a mother of four good sons now down to one.