The Murder of a Dream

“Hi. My name is Clive Jackson Jr. I’m 14 years old. I live in Los Angeles with my mom.”

Standing outside the 77th Street police station in South Los Angeles on Tuesday, Mayor James K. Hahn and Police Chief William J. Bratton painted a big- picture view of the gang violence plaguing the city. Cresie Page, the grandmother of a slain teenager, made it personal.

She read a letter that Clive Jackson Jr. had written to UCLA on Nov. 13. Eight days later, police say, another teenager known to belong to a gang fatally shot the popular Crenshaw High School basketball player outside a Western Avenue doughnut shop.

“I would like to go to UCLA college when I get out of high school.... I would like to know how to get into college so that I can get ready.”

For the first time since 1996, Los Angeles homicides for a calendar year have topped 600. Nearly half the killings have taken place in South L.A. Police say more than half of the city total involved gang members.

“How can I get into sports? I would like to talk to the coach. I would also like to know how can you get a scholarship, because I want to play basketball in the NBA. I would also like to know how to get to know where classes are. Will the people who have been in college show you where the classes are before you get started?”

Bratton likened the city’s criminal street gangs to the Mafia -- except that Los Angeles’ gangs are even worse. New York’s organized-crime families, he said, don’t kill 300 people in a single year.

The police chief called for federal help to go after street gang kingpins using RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Operations Act. He promised to work with state prison and probation officials, and today he will promote Capt. Michael Hillman to deputy chief in charge of coordinating citywide anti-gang actions -- a much-needed “gang czar.”

“I want to know how much are the books there so I can save up. I don’t want my mom to pay for everything.”

The mayor promised a top-to-bottom reevaluation of the city’s gang prevention and intervention programs. He said he would speed up plans to create regional “cabinets” of city employees to work with neighborhoods on crime and other problems and described the epidemic of killings as “our community’s call to action” against gangs.

Include the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and this would be the kind of broad, intergovernmental, communitywide response that is crucial if all of the city’s neighborhoods are to be made safe for 14-year-olds.

“I thank you for your time and I hope to make it there.

Sincerely,

Clive Jackson Jr.”