Police Killing of Teenager Dogs Mayoral Candidates

As candidates for mayor of Los Angeles spread throughout the city Saturday to woo voters, they were confronted repeatedly about LAPD reform two weeks after an officer fatally shot a 13-year-old boy who police said was driving a stolen car.

The issue was raised to Mayor James K. Hahn at a prayer breakfast near Los Angeles International Airport and brought up again as he addressed the group in Boyle Heights.

The subject was broached as Councilman Bernard C. Parks addressed a meeting at the dead boy’s school in South Los Angeles and was the central theme at a discussion attended by state Sen. Richard Alarcon in Leimert Park.

With less than three weeks before the March 8 election, candidates faced emotional appeals for the city to do more to prevent another tragedy like the Feb. 6 shooting death of Devin Brown, an eighth-grader at Audubon Middle School.

Devin’s death is “a very, very emotional issue” for a community that wants to see the Los Angeles Police Department held accountable, said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a commentator and political analyst who led a discussion attended by Alarcon in Leimert Park.

Alarcon said the city must continually grapple with the need to address the actions of individual police officers, while reforming policy. The state senator, who grew up in Sun Valley, said he understood the fear in minority communities because he had experienced it firsthand.

“I’ve literally had police officers approach my car with guns pulled for no apparent reason,” Alarcon said. “We have to remain vigilant and root out excessive force where we can.”

The shooting was also brought up to Hahn as he and Parks mingled with the thousand-plus people who attended a prayer breakfast put on by the Ward AME Church at the LAX Marriott Hotel early Saturday morning.

Between energetic prayers and rousing musical numbers by a large gospel choir, members of the congregation voiced concern that a 13-year-old boy could be shot to death.

Congregant Kenneth Styles said the shooting was very much on the minds of people as they considered whom to vote for. Styles said he was frustrated that police reform has been promised for decades but such incidents keep occurring.

“That issue should have been dealt with 20 years ago,” he said.

Hahn said he told people at the prayer breakfast, and later at a meeting in Boyle Heights with the Mothers of East Los Angeles, that a new policy adopted last week to restrict officers from shooting at moving vehicles will help prevent similar tragedies in the future.

Parks, the former police chief, was asked about the shooting at a meeting he held on crime in the auditorium of Audubon Middle School, the campus Devin had attended.

“People are clearly still upset. They want answers,” Parks said after the meeting with more than 200 residents.

The councilman said the new shooting policy was good because it provided clarity to officers, but he told the audience that the community has to step up and volunteer to coach children after school and be activists to make sure youngsters are getting good educations.

“Even if you don’t have kids in school, you should be in the schools making sure they are educating people,” Parks said.

Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, another candidate for mayor, spent Saturday leading a community service project in Boyle Heights, joining residents in street-cleaning, mural-painting and renovating a house, among other projects.

In a heavy downpour, an estimated 700 people gathered in a hall on 1st Street to kick off the “Day of Service” organized by Villaraigosa’s council office.

“Today, no matter what organization you come from, this is about saving young people,” he said. “It’s not about waiting for someone else to do it. It’s you, rolling up your sleeves to make your community a better place for young people.”

Mayoral candidate Bob Hertzberg, a former Assembly speaker, did not have any public events Saturday, according to aides who said he was busy filming a new television commercial.