Monrovia urged to stay calm in face of violence

Reeling from a spate of gang shootings that has left three dead in the last two weeks, Monrovia officials Thursday urged calm in the San Gabriel Valley community while calling for stepped-up police enforcement.

“We have the resources and the money to fight back -- and we are,” Mayor Rob Hammond said at a morning news conference at City Hall, where he was joined by ministers, school, police and sheriff’s officials.

Hammond said officials plan to hold town meetings next week to further discuss the violence.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Capt. Richard Shaw, whose department patrols the unincorporated area around Monrovia and nearby Duarte, where some of the violence has occurred, said law enforcement agencies throughout the region would provide extra officers in the area to assist in the crackdown. San Fernando, El Monte and Glendora police have committed to rotating officers in and out of Monrovia, authorities said.

“Unprecedented resources are being brought to bear,” Shaw said.

Monrovia, a city of 39,000 in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, has had several gang-related shootings since mid-January.

Residents are concerned that the shootings between black and Latino gangs have included victims with no gang affiliations, and that their attacks may have been racially motivated.

Sanders “Pete” Rollins, a 64-year-old African American, and Samantha Salas, a 16-year-old Latina, who were fatally shot in separate incidents, were not gang members, police said. Rollins was killed in the city; Salas was shot in an unincorporated neighborhood.

“We are in a crisis in Monrovia and Duarte,” said William LaRue Dillard, pastor of the Second Baptist Church, a largely African American church that held services for Rollins. “Every crisis has its dangers and its opportunities.”

City officials say they don’t know yet what sparked the latest feud between the Duroc Crips, a black gang, and Latino gangs Duarte Eastside and Monrovia Nuevo Varrio.

The gangs have warred on and off for years, law enforcement officials say.

However, “we’ve never seen anything quite like this,” said Monrovia Police Chief Roger Johnson.

Johnson said the surge in violence coincided with the release from prison of local gang members, who may be motivating younger members to get active.

In other communities in the past, members of the Mexican Mafia prison gang have ordered Latino street gangs to attack their black rivals, usually in an attempt to control the local drug trade, authorities said. Sometimes the violence involves victims of both races with no gang affiliation.

But Johnson said he had no evidence that was the case in Monrovia.

Hammond asked residents to keep their children from wearing gang attire and to stay away from buildings known to attract gang violence. He asked anyone with any knowledge of the shootings to call (626) 356-8000.

“We must break this cycle of mistrust; we must break this cycle of fear,” he said. “Together we can stop the violence.”

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sam.quinones@latimes.com