Slain Inglewood matriarch’s family struggles with their loss

Their annual Christmas dinner with fellow veterans’ families at an Inglewood park had just wrapped up, and Jose Taylor Jr. and his wife of 40 years were loading leftovers and their grandkids’ toys into the car. Gwen was on her way to get the last of their stuff, when she collapsed.

Taylor thought his wife had fainted — too many helpings, maybe. “Poppy, get Granny off of me!” their youngest grandson shouted. Gwen had been holding the boy’s hand when she fell, and had pinned his leg to the ground.

Smoke from what sounded like firecrackers going off nearby blew away in the breeze. Taylor pulled the child’s leg free and rolled his wife over. Her patterned black blouse, which she saved for pictures and special occasions, was bloody. Others in the park Saturday afternoon ran off.

“Come on, Gwen, talk to us,” Taylor shouted, as his grandchildren, 12, 8, and 5, looked on. The bullet that struck her must have passed just inches above the youngest boy’s head, Taylor said.

“I’m gonna be all right,” the 61-year-old woman said.

“And then her eyes rolled back. And that’s the last we heard from her. I’m still slapping myself. It’s like a dream. Forty years together,” Taylor said Monday, surrounded by family in his cramped South Los Angeles home. His wife was rushed to the hospital, where doctors performed surgery — quart after quart of blood transfused only to bleed out again.

Authorities say her killing was random. They say she was caught in what appears to be a gang shooting. A man walking through the parking lot pulled out a handgun and began shooting, police said. His target, a 16-year-old boy, ducked behind a parked car, but stray bullets struck Taylor and a 15-year-old boy, who was treated and released. The intended victim has been interviewed by police, but the shooter is still at large.

Despite living in an area where gang activity is common, this is the Taylors’ first direct brush with violence.

Gwen, they said, was the matriarch — four children, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

“Where we live, we all [live] in poverty,” her son, Thomas Taylor, 34 recalled.

When he was a boy, his mother insisted on giving away sugar and bread to other families in need. “Why you giving food to other people?” Thomas recalled asking. “Stop being selfish, it’s not just about you,” his mother would reply.

Ramone Prescott, 26, sat on his slain aunt’s sofa, his black baseball cap pulled low, rubbing a hand towel against his bloodshot eyes.

“When my grandma died, she took me in,” Prescott said. “She raised me. She took care of everybody. Everybody was her child.”

Gwen Taylor, a homecare nurse, planned to visit with an ailing friend after the Christmas meal Saturday afternoon. She and her husband had been considering renewing their vows in the coming year.

“Forty years. We just love each other that much, we wanted to do it again,” Jose Taylor said.

Inglewood police are still looking for the gunman from the shooting at Rogers Park. Police and Taylor’s family ask that anyone with information contact Inglewood homicide investigators at (888) 412-7463.

robert.faturechi@latimes.com