Hope Is Reborn at Pico-Aliso

Instead of simply retelling the Easter story this year, one East Los Angeles housing project celebrated its own modern-day version Sunday of the tale of death and resurrection.

The murder of 19-year-old Jesus Alejandro Hernandez last month brought new life to the residents of the Pico-Aliso housing project and prompted them to push for more security in their neighborhood. They held prayer services and news conferences and even fasted to pressure city officials to meet their demands.

Their efforts proved successful. Mayor James K. Hahn announced last week that he would set aside $2.2 million for extra security at public housing projects around the city. And Police Chief William J. Bratton has pledged to increase patrols and work with community members to address crime problems.

At Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, Father Michael Kennedy congratulated the community for uniting to stand up against gang violence. And the congregants rejoiced with a Mexican feast and a children’s Easter egg hunt in the church courtyard.

“Somehow these people weren’t destroyed” by the senseless death, Kennedy said as he sat under an umbrella in the courtyard. “There was an inner strength.”

Community organizer Rita Chairez, who lives down the street from the Hernandez family, said she saw the city funding as an Easter gift. Chairez, a mother of five, has lived in the Pico-Aliso project for 14 years and can vividly recall the images of other deaths. She said she was thrilled to see the Los Angeles Police Department respond with promises to increase patrols.

“It gives you a sense that we are not alone in the pain,” she said. “We are not alone in the fight for the safety of our children.”

The push for extra security in Boyle Heights began four years ago, when fifth-grader Stephanie Raygoza was killed by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting in front of her home. Residents took to the streets, called for an end to the violence and accused the city of failing to make the area safe.

They persuaded then-LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks to support a community policing project, which included establishing a 24-hour presence of at least two officers in the area. They also started an anonymous tip line to report crime and got more street lights in the neighborhood. Residents said the changes didn’t drive away the gangs, but they reduced the gunfire.

But then Stephanie’s cousin, Hernandez, was struck by a stray bullet during a drive-by shooting March 10.

Hernandez, a construction worker who was not in a gang, was on his way home from work when he was shot. He died two days later.

Residents again mobilized. They wrote letters to city officials, including Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, and met with LAPD officers and Housing Authority members. Roughly 50 community members fasted for nine days to show that they were tired of living in fear and to demand that the city make the neighborhood safer.

While they fasted, two more people -- Annette Anderson, 52, and George Brooks, 34 -- were killed near another housing project, Nickerson Gardens in Watts.

Hahn announced Thursday that he would divert federal funds from city street maintenance to security, providing for 40,000 hours of police overtime.

Hernandez’s mother, Maricela Hernandez, said her son had never spent time on the streets because he feared getting killed. On Sunday, she and several family members wore T-shirts with a photograph of Hernandez on the back and a haunting poem he had written on the front. “My heart is scared, my eyes wide open ... my life awaits its ending, but it will put up a fight against any evil before it drops,” the poem read.

When Hernandez learned about the new money for security, she said it seemed to give meaning to her son’s death. She hopes the city follows through on its pledge, she said, “so another mother doesn’t face what I have.”

Jessica Chairez, 15, said she rarely stayed out past dark, so she was relieved about having police officers around more. But she said there was still a lot more to do before she would feel safe. “It will help,” she said. “Little by little, it’s getting there.”

LAPD Officer Austin Fernald, who has worked in the Hollenbeck Division for two decades, said the Pico-Aliso project has changed dramatically over the years. In the 1980s, gangs controlled the project. Now the housing has been rebuilt and is much safer, but violence still prevails.

Just as the neighborhood depends on the LAPD, Fernald said, the officers rely on parents to try to keep their teenage children out of trouble and to report crime when they see it. The residents of Pico-Aliso have united unlike ever before, Fernald said. “That’s good,” he said, “because there is truly strength in numbers.”