Errant bullets shatter lives

I worried that news accounts of the shooting death at Inglewood’s Rogers Park of a grandma on a family outing would feel like a bullet to the heart of Rhonda Foster.

Foster’s son, Evan, died in similar fashion 13 years ago this month; the victim of errant bullets in a gang-related shooting at Inglewood’s Darby Park. I’d written about the family over the years and often thought about them.

But Foster hadn’t heard much about last Saturday’s shooting. She’s been too busy counseling would-be gang members — trying to keep them from taking up guns.

That’s been her mission since 7-year-old Evan was shot to death in the back seat of their car as the family was about to head home from the park after picking up his basketball trophy. Three young men were sentenced to 20 years to life for his murder. They were not aiming for Evan, but sprayed the parking lot with an assault rifle to even the score for a rival gang’s attack.

Police aren’t certain yet that last Saturday’s shooting of Gwen Taylor was gang-related. “But that’s the way we’re looking at it now,” said Inglewood Police Sgt. Brian Spencer. “We know she was leaving the park and was in no way involved in anything that had to do with the shots being fired.”

The 61-year-old grandmother was killed by stray bullets aimed at a teenage boy who ducked behind a car, police said. She had just loaded her grandkids’ toys in the car, after the family’s annual Christmas dinner with her husband’s military buddies.

Spencer said police have not received a single call about the crime. “Nothing to WeTip or Crimestoppers,” he said. “Someone witnessed something. Maybe they recognize the guy from the neighborhood; they saw someone running from the park.

“We need someone to come forward. It’s difficult to make a case without that kind of help.”

Taylor’s family will bury her Thursday. “We haven’t heard anything. We’re just waiting,” her daughter Mimi said.

Foster remembers that numb feeling from the days after Evan’s death. But information from gang associates helped land Evan’s killers behind bars before the child’s body was laid to rest.

There is something about the murder of a child that seems to stifle the “no snitching” edict. When 5-year-old Aaron Shannon was killed in his backyard this Halloween while showing off his Spider-Man costume, police were flooded with tips from the streets and arrested two gang members before the next weekend.

But that’s cold comfort to a mourning family. That’s why Rhonda and her husband, Ruett, turned Evan’s death into a reclamation project.

Ruett became a pastor after Evan’s death. Rhonda counsels children with Community Build, a city-sponsored gang prevention project. They visit prisons, schools and community groups, talking about what it meant to lose their son.

They seem to understand — as much as middle-class, church-going folks can — the circumstances that breed gangs and glamorize guns.

“They’re typical kids when you’re dealing with them one on one,” said Rhonda, whose office in a Crenshaw area mall draws troubled children and worried families. “But they’re not thinking beyond themselves.” They’re impulsive, angry, surrounded by bad influences.

Statistically, the battle is being won. Gang crime is down on almost every front. But retaliation is still a powerful concept. And all the counseling in the world can’t solve what Foster considers a central problem: the availability of guns and bullets.

“They’re caught up in the moment. They have easy access to weapons, this impulsivity, these major issues going on at home. They get themselves in these kind of situations.”

And someone dies.

Gun control laws have always been a hard sell. But Foster thinks that would change “if people would just take the time to really see what is being presented and how sensible it is.”

“The city of Los Angeles has ordinances to keep ammunition behind the counter, instead of out on the shelves where it can easily be stolen,” she pointed out. “The average citizen thinks that’s so basic it should already be in place everywhere. But it’s not.”

Making it harder for young people to get ammunition “might give them a chance to cool off. They might decide to do something else,” she said.

Ten years ago, Foster joined Women Against Gun Violence, which pushes for tougher gun laws and sends young victims of gun violence to “reverse the acceptance of gun violence as normal behavior” by warning their peers away from the lifestyle.

A scroll through the group’s online memorial took me beyond the victims we write about — the high-powered agent, the saintly grandma, the innocent trick-or-treater in costume — to the holes guns have left in private lives.

There’s 12-year-old Timmy, not much different from Evan, seen through his grieving father’s eyes. “He played Nintendo, enjoyed riding his bike, collected Pokemon cards and loved to read Harry Potter books.” If Timmy Koppos had had a chance to grow up, “he wanted to be a professional mover, like his dad.”

And family matriarch Mary Ann Bramlett, as sprightly and loving as Gwen Taylor: “She took care of herself, enjoyed great health … owned and maintained her own home” at 81, her daughter wrote; until “the cowardly use of a gun” took her from them.

You never really get over the loss, Foster told me. And every new murder reminds you.

Every random shooting, every errant bullet leaves a family in shambles behind it.

sandy.banks@latimes.com