Friends Lament Slaying, Violence

There was a protest last month against the violence in this South Los Angeles neighborhood, where the streets so often are ruled by gangs, drugs and prostitution, where jobs are scarce and where small businesses struggle for air.

Marchers led by Msgr. David O’Connell walked the mile down South Figueroa Street between Imperial Highway and Century Boulevard, stopping at each spot where someone had been killed in the last year. They stopped eight times.

Another body was added to the toll over the weekend, a man familiar to those who attend Ascension Catholic Church, which is O’Connell’s parish. Celso Mazariegos, who owned the flower shop across the street and the hair salon down the block, was slain Saturday night.

Police said two men came into the tiny flower shop at the corner of South Figueroa and 112th Street at 6:15 p.m. and tried to rob it. Mazariegos, 50, started to run, police said, but one of the gunmen shot him just outside the front door. His 13-year-old son, who often played on the street near his parents, watched him die, friends said. Police did not know if anything was taken.

“I think the whole community cried over the loss of that man,” said a 39-year-old homeless man named Ike. “I didn’t know anybody who had contact with him that didn’t like him.”

Outside the flower shop Sunday, votive candles were arranged in the shape of a cross near where Mazariegos’ body fell. The flower shop, Floreria Janet, was open. It is small enough that two customers make a crowd.

A glass display case was filled with white teddy bears, and flower arrangements sat on a counter. A pair of Christmas trees sat outside the doorway.

Customers came in to place orders, not knowing what had occurred, while others milled about, wondering how this could happen.

“He was a good man,” said Jafet Chavez, 20. “He didn’t cause trouble with nobody. It’s a tragedy how they killed him.”

Everyone in the neighborhood seems to have their own story about the violence. “It’s not safe anymore,” Sandra Thomas, 58, said to her granddaughter as they entered a Mexican restaurant/mini-market. She said her 32-year-old son was robbed at gunpoint a couple of years ago.

Rocia Magdalena, 17, said the restaurant had been robbed three times in the three years her family has owned it.

Mazariegos lived the American story of the immigrant who arrives with nothing and works hard to build a life for his family. He came from the southern Mexico state of Chiapas about 20 years ago. Working as a gardener, he saved his money and opened his own gardening business, eventually building it to 25 customers. He saved more, friends said, and opened the beauty salon, which his wife ran, and the flower shop across the street.

He hired people to run the flower shop during the day, but after finishing his gardening work, he’d take over until closing time at 7:30 p.m.

He still had time to help coach his son’s soccer team and bought the squad their uniforms. He also had a 14-year-old daughter and three grown children in Mexico.

“He was a good father, a good husband,” O’Connell said.