Police Seek Suspects in Two Slayings

Police appealed for help Tuesday in their investigation into the slayings of a park counselor and a 15-year-old girl spending the night at a friend’s house who died in separate shootings in the harbor area of Los Angeles.

Police said 20-year-old Willie Ford, a recreation assistant at Harbor City Recreation Center, was killed after leaving his job after 9 p.m. Monday, said LAPD Det. Daniel Ornelas.

Ford, a Moreno Valley resident and Harbor College student, is not known to have been seen again after he helped close the park facility for the evening. Passersby a few blocks away, in the 26000 block of Frampton Avenue, found his bullet-pierced body on the sidewalk about 9:50 p.m.

Co-workers at the park said they had known Ford since childhood: He used the park as a child, volunteered there as he grew up, and became one of the center’s most dedicated employees -- always dependable, always neat in a clean white T-shirt and white shoes, always willing to do odd jobs, such as take out the garbage, his friends said.

He worked with 5- to 12-year-old children in the park’s day camp, said co-worker Cathy Hilliard. “When he played with the kids, he was a kid too,” she said. “Whatever age they were, that was the age he was.”

Ford aimed to run a recreation center someday, she said. “He felt that the parks were there for him, and he wanted to make sure they were there for these kids too,” she said.

The second victim was ninth-grader Desirree Haro of San Pedro, who had been spending the night at the house of a girlfriend with her mother’s permission, but decided in the middle of the night to go home.

She walked outside into the alley behind the house, near 253rd Street and Normandie Avenue, joining a group of teenagers.

While Desirree was standing with the group, a car seen cruising the neighborhood earlier came by again, and many rounds were fired into the group, Ornelas said.

She was the only one hit.

“They were not directing it at her. It was just the group. It was a random, drive-by shooting,” Ornelas said.

Ornelas said he thinks as many as six people were present -- all teenagers about Desirree’s age -- but only a few have come forward to give statements to police. He pleaded for the other witnesses to come forward and help police find the killers.

The shooting is believed to be gang-related, he said.

Teresa Haro, Desirree’s mother, also called on the public to help find the killers. The police had come to her front door while she was watching television to tell her what had happened, she said. She had rushed up the street in time to find paramedics putting Desirree into an ambulance.

The fourth of nine Haro children, Desirree had attended Alexander Fleming Middle School. She was slim and pretty, with large, deep dimples, her mother said. She was not much into clothes, favoring T-shirts and jeans, and loved to play card games with her siblings. “My family is torn apart,” her mother said. “Help us know who did this, please.”

Although similar in location and manner of death, the killings were distinct: Desirree, because of her age and gender, was a highly unusual homicide victim, statistically. But Ford, as a 20-year-old black man, was a member of the demographic group that falls victim to homicide most often, both locally and throughout the country.

Police asked people with information to call (310) 548-2835.