Proposal takes aim at guns near schools

Suzette Gutierrez knows Aragon Avenue Elementary. It’s where she first went to school in the 1980s, where she served as a teachers assistant two decades later and where she now sends her two girls.

Until recently, Gutierrez, 28, would never have thought about moving. But now she’s not so sure.

A recent rash of high-profile shootings has her Cypress Park neighborhood on edge and local officials scrambling to ensure that residents feel safe.

“The concept is fear. We haven’t felt like this in a long time . . . But how are you supposed to answer when your 6-year-old daughter asks if it’s safe to go to school?” Gutierrez said. “I’m embarrassed about the turn our community is taking.”

She stood on Aragon’s front lawn Monday with council members who proposed stricter punishments for those caught with illegal firearms in a school zone.

The ordinance would require a minimum sentence of 90 days in jail for anyone found with an unlicensed gun within 1,000 feet of a school, including preschools and day-care centers.

“I have a message to gang members: Stay away from our schools,” said Councilman Ed Reyes, who co-sponsored the bill with Councilman Jack Weiss. “The one place in this city where children, parents and administrators should feel safe is in their school. The recent shootings, including the one here at Aragon elementary, violated that sense of sanctuary,” Reyes said.

The shooting last month occurred during school hours on the edge of Aragon’s front lawn.

Police said that Marcos Salas, 36, who was holding his 2-year-old granddaughter, was shot 17 times by Avenues gang members in a drive-by Feb. 21. His granddaughter was not harmed.

Witnesses who knew Salas fired back at the car. Minutes later and about 10 blocks away, a shootout with police left one of the gang members dead and another wounded.

According to current law, it is a crime to possess a gun in a school zone. Although the law is used to make arrests, jail time is not mandatory and left to the discretion of judges.

“The problem is [the current] law doesn’t have any teeth in it,” Weiss said. “We are going to create an absolute zero-tolerance zone around these schools.”

The shooting at Aragon was one of several shootings in and around Los Angeles schools in recent months. On Feb. 27, five students from George Washington Carver Middle School in South Los Angeles were shot while waiting at a bus stop after classes.

There have been more than 305 gunshot victims citywide so far this year, Weiss said. Last year, there were 1,323 shooting victims across the city, according to statistics from the Los Angeles Police Department.

Reyes said he hoped the proposed ordinance, if passed, would send youths a clear message. Veteranos, older gang members, often tell new gang prospects that the punishment for carrying a gun will not be severe and that they won’t go to jail, he said.

“They need to know there will be consequences,” he said.

Reyes, who grew up near Aragon, said better jobs and business opportunities are also needed to combat the pull of the area’s underground drug trade.

Gutierrez said the ordinance was a good “first step” but worried about the fate of her community. She said she never imagined worrying whether her children would be safe at school.

“I’m scared,” she said. “There isn’t a chapter in any parenting book on this.”

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ari.bloomekatz@latimes.com