A 46-year-old man was shot and killed late Monday night as he was in the park at 53rd Street and Compton Avenue . The victim, William Tyrone Moss, was shot in the back at least once at the Slauson Multipurpose Center at 11:08 p.m., and transported to USC Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.
Anyone with information on the killing can call the LAP Newton Division at (323) 846-6547
The California Court of Appeals will review a motion by defense lawyers of Cleamon "Big Evil" Johnson that argues their client is a victim of vindictive prosecution, a claim that if ruled in his favor would drop three of the five murder charges against the 89 Family Swan Bloods gang member.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta, who is presiding over the case, had ruled against the motion in September, but the Court of Appeals agreed to review it, a decision that thrilled Johnson and his attorneys Robert Sanger and Victor Salerno
"This was very, very good news," said Salerno. He downplayed any significance that the prosecution had asked for an extra week last Thursday to present their written case to the appeals court which is now due Dec. 18. The defense will have an opportunity to respond to the prosecution's argument and the two sides could meet at the Ronald Reagan State Building to present their cases in February.
According to a piece in the Yale Law Review, legal "vindictiveness" does not refer to a prosecutor’s ill feeling toward, or even his desire to harm, a defendant. Rather, wrote Doug Lieb, a law clerk for the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, "As defined by the Supreme Court,vindictiveness means that a prosecutor has retaliated against a defendant for the exercise of a legal right, denying his/her due process."
Johnson spent more than 13 years on death row in San Quentin for the unrelated 1991 double murder of Donald Ray Loggins and Payton Beroit that he and co-defendant Michael "Fat Rat" Allen were found guilty of in 1997. That conviction was overturned in 2011 by the California Supreme Court which ruled that a juror, leaning toward acquittal, was wrongly removed by judge Charles E. Horan.
Johnson and Allen were sent back to the Los Angeles Men's Central Jail for a retrial As they prepared to retry that 1991 case, the district attorney's office, aided by LAPD detectives, set out to find additional cases to pin on Johnson.. They were given the luxury of time by the defendant's decision to waive their rights to a speedy trial and the many subsequent delays in the case LAPD detectives scoured the California penal system looking for inmates willing to testify against the man who is among the most famous gang members in the city's history.
In addition to the two men - Payton Beroit and Donald Ray Loggins - shot to death at a car wash in 1991, the district attorney's office now alleges Georgia Denise "Nece" Jones, Albert Sutton and Tyrone Mosley were all killed or ordered killed by Johnson. While Johnson was in Ironwood State Prison, Jones was shot and killed June 12, 1994 at 87th Place and Wadsworth Avenue in the 89 Family Swan neighborhood. Sutton was also killed in that neighborhood. Mosley was shot and killed in September 15, 1991 on 97th Street and McKinley Avenue, a 97 East Coast Crips neighborhood.
Johnson, acting as his own lawyer, was previously tried on the Mosley killing in 1998.. The result was a hung jury, well in his favor.
If the court grants the vindictive prosecution appeal, Johnson and Allen would still face a trial on the original double murder case. However, that case was not a ":slam 'dunk" and relied much on the testimony of one Freddie "FM" Jelks, himself a gang member facing prison who was killed many years ago in an unrelated incident on the west side..
Earlier in court, Johnson' lawyers sought to have Jelks' recorded testimony kept from being played back in court. Johnson's lead attorney Sanger, even threatened - or joked - he would go "Clint Eastwood" on an empty witness stand, a reference to the actor grilling an imaginary President Obama sitting on a chair at the 2012 Republican Convention
Last year, Johnson told a visitor the extra charges were "bullshit." .
"It's just more bullshit to keep me locked up, keep a trial going," said Johnson who is back in the regular high power section of the jail, after nearly a year in a special, segregated cell, (not for his own safety). "They think when I get out, I'm going to go on some rampage. And the police tell people that. Man, I just want to be free. I'm someone who could help stop this violence."
Johnson claims to be a changed man. He told a visitor recently " I am not the same person I was when I went in here. I'm not Big Evil. I'm Cleamon Johnson."
"Have you ever heard of Dr. Bruce Banner?" the visitor asked him, referring to the Hulk's alter ego.
He broke into a gigantic laugh, "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
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A male Hispanic was stabbed to death early Wednesday morning, possibly by two female Hispanics, the LAPD said today. The man, said to be between 20 and 25 years old, was pronounced dead by paramedics near the intersection of Figueroa Street and Avenue 59 shortly before 2:30 a.m.. The two suspects may have fled in a black Dodge Charger.
Anyone with information can call the LAPD Northeast Division at ( 323) 344-5701
"Is it wrong to gamble or only to lose?" - Sky Masterson in "Guys and Dolls"
If Damon Runyon, the brilliant story teller of Broadway's gamblers, was alive and stepping in our town,, five would get you ten he be hanging out with Kev Mac, the most over-the-top dice shooter ever to come from the streets of South Los Angeles' deadly and intoxicating street gang world.
But, since Runyon's writing skills have dramatically diminished since his death 69 years today, it was up to Kev Mac to pen his own stories and the result is the just-published "Sprung; Memoirs of a Legendary Gambler", 36 fascinating tales of a dice-throwing life winning and losing millions in the casinos of Las Vegas and in the backyards of south-central.
Kev Mac, 47 paints an often-thrilling - shooting dice with $52,000 at stake and winning - and often-agonizing - too broke to buy gasoline - portrait of his life as a gambler. He talks about how his addiction was like that of an alcoholic where he would get the shakes when he didn't gamble and the only cure - the equivalent of trembling drunk taking a drink - was throwing the dice.
Kev Mac, a full fledged member of one of the country's most notorious street gangs, the Rollin' 60s Crips, writes his first taste of the gambling life came at age 12, when an older guy from the neighborhood, Chipper, known for his skill with the old Intellivision baseball game, invited him to his house at 57th and Harcourt to play a game. Kev Mac won and Chipper's friends fell out laughing at him. Infuriated, Chipper demanded to bet Kev $20 he would win the rematch. In Sprung's first chapter, "A Gambler In The Making", he describes his reaction. "Twenty dollars?!" I asked in my Dennis the Menace voice. "You've got a deal".
You know what happened. Kev Mac gambling career had started out with a win. As he writes "Not only did this event spark the great "Kev vs. Chipper" games, it also introduced me to the seedy world of serious gambling."
But, it was nine years years later, at age, 21, when his father took him to the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas when the love affair - or pure infatuation - with dice began. Though the trip was a financial loser, it changed Kev Mac's life. On the ride back to Los Angeles he says his "competitive nature came to the forefront and my 'I can't be defeated' attitude was born."
He had been defeated at the Stardust, but he was determined to get even. "It's just like the streets," he explains. "When a guy beats you up, you gotta go back and get even. "
Kev Mac, proud Rollin' 60s Crip, often wearing their symbolic blue Seattle Mariners cap with an emblazoned "S" ( for, in his case, 60s) would fearlessly - or blindly - cross gang boundaries to attend crap games, even if they were in Bloods-dominated areas, most often in Rollin 20s Bloods hood.
Not only would he have to contend with rival gang members the LAPD was a constant threat.
Whereas Sky Masterson, and his cronies Nathan Detroit, Nicely NIcely Johnson and Harry the Horse had to deal with Lt. Brannigan, Kev Mac and company faced a far more perilous threat, LAPD's hard chargin CRASH units. In one story set on Brynhurst - the Rollin's 60s most notorious street - he write of how the police would often disrupt the craps games. "Police officer from the 77th Street Division were always turnt up,. speeding down the blocc, jumping out with their pistols aimed at us. How's a brother 'spose to roll a seven with a nine pointed at this head?"
The Six-Oh life is peppered throughout. This has to be the only book on gambling that has a chapter that begins with "While awaiting trial for a home invasion robbery in the gang module of the L.A. County jail, I turned to spades betting. " Kev Mac did some years for that robbery which was at the home of former NBA player Benoit Benjamin.
When he got out, he amped up his bets. Many times Kev threw the dice with $52,000 on the table. Often he won. But, like the classic addict, he could rarely walk away form the table
"I won millions and I lost millions," he said as he looked out last week at the old Summit Field baseball diamond in Ladera Heights where he played left field as a kid. "I was constantly fighting myself, not only after I lost a bet, but after I won one. I'd want more. And lose? I couldn't accept to lose. I'd be up tens of thousands and start to lose it and try and get it back and lost it all. Lotta times my life was a nightmare"
Through much of it, Kev had a full time job as a school bus driver, making $10 an hour. But, the cash he had on hand was no bus driver money. "I had cash stashed under the mattress, in pillowcases, even in the Encyclopedia Britannica."
When the times were good, and when Kev was single, he had to have a female escort and Las Vegas was loaded with hookers. Kev Mac eloquently explains the difference between an expensive hooker and a moderately price one – their purse. "A thousand dollar pussy and a hundred dollar pussy is the same thing. One might have a Luis Vuitton purse and the other a Mary Kaye purse, but that's about it. I've had a lot of good times with both."
Lots of those good times were courtesy of his sports heroes and the money he won betting on them He cites John Elway, Steve Young, Brett Favre and Warren Moon as his biggest money makers But, on one notable occasion Moon let him down after building him up
He writes of a chapter where he took Shana, the mother of his son, to Vegas for a getaway and some sports betting. The football game he bet on – a famous 1993 playoff game between Moon's Houston Oilers and the Buffalo Bills started out wonderfully. The Oilers were ahead 35-3 in the second half and Kev promised to buy her anything she wanted. Shana pointed to a huge stuff lion with a $700 price tag. He nodded.
"Are you really gonna buy me a $700 stuffed animal?", Shana asked.
"I'll buy you whatever you want."
Then the gridiron horror began for Kev. The Bills mounted probably the greatest comeback in NFL playoff history winning in overtime 41-38. Suffice to say, the rest of the trip didn't go so well.
That game was 22 years ago. Kev quit throwing dice in 2012, but he still bets on sports. He shows off the winning ticket of a Nov. 19 when he won $9,000 on football games
Still, that money is long gone.
"It's almost like I'm not happy til i'm broke. I have that trait of most gamblers. I'm greedy. I'm enjoying the lifestyle, but then I'm not enjoying the life style. it's really fun and sad at the same time."
To buy "Sprung" check this link. The book is only $11 and it might just save you thousands at the crap table.
http://www.amazon.com/Sprung-Memoirs-Legendary-Kev-Mac/dp/0692540172/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1449602972&sr=8-1&keywords=sprung++kev+mac
Ronald “Kartoon” Antwine is sitting in his garage, looking out at the Union Pacific railroad tracks near 114th and Wilmington Avenue. Kartoon is one of the legendary Bounty Hunters. A former menace to society. A 6-foot-4½-inch, 260-pound thug who carried a pistol in one pocket and a sawed-off Winchester pump shotgun under his black leather jacket. He robbed people, shot people, beat up people in the wild days of the ’70s.
He paid for his crimes by doing more than 15 years at the toughest prisons in California, including thousands of days at Folsom back when Folsom made the Pelican Bay of today seem like juvenile hall. He walked out of prison in 1992 and has not been back.
Just days after he left Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe (“America’s Hottest Prison”), the peace treaty was being negotiated, and Kartoon became a key representative for the Bounty Hunters and Nickerson Gardens. He recalls that one of the biggest sticking points was that the Crips — PJs and Grape Street — were concerned about their safety in his Blood neighborhood.
“One day I said, ‘Let’s find out,’ and we all started walking through the Nickersons, Bloods and Crips. The young homies were stunned, but they joined in. It was beautiful.”
These days, Kartoon is a gifted writer, a Bounty Hunter historian, a community activist, and still a respected figure in Nickerson Gardens. “You see that field right there by the tracks?” he asks, pointing 50 feet away. “That used to be our Vietnam. That was the frontlines. That was the border between the Bounty Hunters and the PJs. There used to be weeds higher than me there, and we’d be sniping at them from our side and they’d be sniping at us from their side.”
But now that the PJs and Bounty Hunters are getting along, the weeds are gone, and so is the fear of gunfire. “I sit in this garage and it’s a pleasure to see the people cross the tracks, crossing enemy lines. It’s like walking through a force field on Star Trek. Used to be you cross those tracks, you die. Now people walk back and forth.”
Kartoon, 46, partly blames the local government and the lack of resources available to help stop the violence. But Kartoon (Bloods disdain the letter C) reserves his harshest words for those whom he considers the cause of the treaty’s demise and the latest upsurge in violence by young, reactionary gangsters. “All the projects are doing their part to stop the violence, but every project has those reactionaries who listen to no one and don’t want to participate in the peace movement,” he says. “All we ask is they don’t sabotage the peace. It’s like in Baghdad. They got that one religious sect doing all the bombing. But, the other sect refuses to retaliate.”
Kartoon says he’s been in the Nickersons during and after recent shootings. With other hall-of-fame Bounty Hunters Big Hank and Big Donny he tried to persuade the young homies not to retaliate. “Our young guys were saying, 'Fuck this. We gonna do something.' So Hank and Donny and everybody, we had to calm them. It’s not an easy thing to do.”
He doesn’t tell young Bounty Hunters what to do — to attack or not to attack — but rather emphasizes the consequences of their actions.
"All the guys getting busted, they don’t realize what a life sentence is. When the pop goes off, when their head pops out of their ass and they realize they ain’t going home after just five years. When they realize they’ll never be able to taste a Big Mac or a Quarter Pounder again. To see them go crazy when they hear their moms is dying and they’re locked up and can’t go see her. When they hear their woman is pregnant by their best homeboy. When they realize they’ll never see a night sky again."
As I’m driving one evening through the 1,066-unit Nickerson Gardens, said to be the largest housing project west of the Mississippi, dozens of men and women are milling about, and children are playing near their apartment units, many of them with small, nicely tended gardens with roses in full spring bloom.
For anyone who has ever seen the nation’s worst housing projects, such as the now-destroyed, infamous Robert Taylor Homes on the South Side of Chicago, the projects in Watts look almost pleasant during a quick drive-through. They are not high-rise prisons like Robert Taylor, Cabrini Green or Rockwell Gardens, but rather two-story buildings with small patches of lawn in front of them. A closer look, however, reveals the poverty and aura of hopelessness.
The Los Angeles city attorney has imposed a gang injunction against the Bounty Hunters here that makes it a misdemeanor for any of them to be together, although it is impossible to enforce all the time. In part of the city attorney’s report, LAPD Officer Victor Ross, one of the most hated men in Nickerson Gardens, writes, "When gang members are stopped by law enforcement they will say that they are going to visit their grandmothers, but in fact they are just hanging out with a bunch of other gang members, drinking, using drugs, playing loud music, gambling, loitering to be hooks or lookouts. They are doing anything but visiting their grandmothers."
Officer Ross describes a few gang members, like Aubrey Anderson, known as "Lunatic" or simply "Tic." "He is feared in the sense that he is short-tempered and is seen as crazy enough to do anything. He is not afraid to commit violence to further the gang." Another one is Israel Jauregui, a.k.a. Izzy, who has a tattoo on his arm that says, "Kill or Be Killed." "He is a violent gang member who is not afraid to commit shootings or other violent acts for the gang." Izzy, it turns out, is in federal custody now, and attempts to contact Lunatic were unsuccessful, much to the delight of my family.
Of the three projects in Watts, Imperial Courts appears the most run-down. The blue and green buildings that house 490 units look tired. Trash is rampant, flowers are few, and packs of young men evil-eye every stranger.
At Imperial Courts Recreation Center, which has a shiny full-size basketball court, no one is in the gym. But the narrow streets are full of young men. No one wants to talk about the breakdown of the truce. The four most common responses are "I’m not from here," "I’m just visiting," "Fuck off" and "Talk to PJ Steve."
PJ Steve is Steven Myrick, a tall, well-built 39-year-old who’s been a Crip almost his entire life, did nine years for kidnapping, robbery and assault, and has 2-inch-tall letters, "P" and "J," tattooed on his throat.
When PJ Steve heard about the 1992 treaty, he had mixed emotions.
"I was locked up when the peace treaty happened, and I was confused about it for a while. I couldn’t get it," says PJ Steve. "But then you realize it was a move for the kids. Kids need a better way than the way we had it. But now you got kids going back to the same ways.
PJ Crip "Cornbread" chimes in that he doesn’t feel safe in Jordan Downs.
In Jordan Downs, a group of Grape Streeters talk about the breakdown of the treaty, and the future. "I didn’t really like the peace treaty anyway," says Scrap, 29. "If I kill you today, then one of your homies who’s like 11 or 12 now is gonna remember it, and when he gets older he’s gonna blow my head off. That’s what’s happening today."
There is some hope in Jordan Downs that the infamous Grape Street shot caller Wayne "Honcho" Day may soon be free after serving nine years in federal prison on drug distribution and conspiracy charges. Day, now 48, was sentenced to more than 19 years, but he successfully appealed on the basis that he was poorly represented, and a decision on whether to reduce his sentence will be made within a month or so, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Terrell.
In a 1997 speech by Steven R. Wiley, then chief of the Violent Crimes and Major Offenders section of the FBI, Honcho was called "the Godfather of Watts." That’s a slight exaggeration, but when told that Honcho may be getting out of prison soon, both Kartoon and PJ Steve consider it good news.
"If Honcho was here, this wouldn’t be happening," says Kartoon.
Sitting on a wooden table near the closed Jordan Downs gymnasium on a fine spring afternoon as his friends prepare to barbecue and play baseball, Honcho’s nephew Kmond Day lays part of the blame for the violence on alcohol.
"Alcohol is not for peace," he says. "But some people drink cuz there’s nothing else to do. The reality is, if we have guys from our own hood who get high and we can’t control them here, how can we expect them to go to other hoods and not act stupid?"
But Kmond says most gang members don’t even know why they bang.
"A lot of so-called gang members could win Oscars. They’re acting like gang members. They’re doing the stuff gang members do — shooting, killing — but they don’t even know the whole purpose of representing the hood. If you ask them why they bang, they say, 'To represent the hood.' Represent what? There is no point in representing the hood. What’s the purpose? There is no purpose."
Many young kids gangbang out of fear, not fear of the other hoods but fear from guys from their own block.
"You got cats that’s killing cats from other projects, and the homies that are with them are afraid of them, so they try to impress their big homies," says Kmond. "But really, they are just scared. But they think it’s the only way to survive."
Some complain bitterly about what they consider the rough tactics of one LAPD officer, Christian Mrakich. They claim he harasses people and encourages the gang wars. "Mrakich is the Rafael Perez of Jordan Downs," says Daude Sherrills.
Captain Sergio Diaz says he has received several complaints about "an officer" in Jordan Downs, but nothing has been substantiated.
"While I can’t talk about personnel investigations, I will tell you, in the course of a criminal investigation earlier this year, we know from wiretaps that targets of these narcotics investigations encouraged each other to make complaints about a specific officer who they knew to be investigating them," Diaz says. "We checked them out and concluded he had done nothing wrong."
Attempts to interview Mrakich are rejected by the LAPD, but his commander laughs when told that many gang members spoke badly of the officer.
"We have a lot of bad things to say about Grape Street, too," says Captain Diaz. "They are killers, dope dealers and robbers. Mrakich and [Victor] Ross are very effective in the projects, and of course many people hate them, quite naturally."
Unlike some in the LAPD, Diaz praises the now-fallen peace treaty.
"There was a lot of skepticism in the department about the treaty, but I believe it made a significant difference in the violent-crime rate," says Diaz.
"Obviously, the truce thing was good in that people weren’t shooting each other. But now, unfortunately, that is over."
On the evening of April 9, Officers Oscar Ontiveros and Darren Stauffer, from Diaz’s Southeast Division, are involved in a shooting that kills Bounty Hunter Spencer "Fox" Johnson after, they say, he pointed an assault rifle at them near Bellhaven and 112th streets. Gang sources say Fox was on the lookout for a Grape Street attack at the time.
In the early-morning hours of May 9, another Bounty Hunter, Kemal Hutcherson, 24, is gunned down — not by police — on perhaps the most cruelly named street in the city, Success Avenue.
Though it has a nationwide bad rep (and this story won’t make it any better), citizens who live here have a great deal of pride in Watts. I’ve never heard anyone boast, "Man, I’m from Bel Air," but folks seem almost eager to tell you they’re from Watts. And because of their resiliency, and because of the mostly good memories of the 1992 treaty, there is much hope that this current battle of the projects will not be left to fester and maim and kill for years.
In the last two weeks there has been a call to fight the good fight. Not to cave in to the violence and accept it as in days of yore. Not to just be outraged when a cop kills a black kid, but be outraged when a black kid kills a black kid.
In the projects, a new group of respected, slightly older gang members — not just famous triple O.G.s like Big Hank from the Nickersons or Elementary from Grape Street, but adults in their mid-20s and -30s, men and women who are trying to reach the youngsters and quell the killings — have emerged.
One of those young men is Bow Wow from Grape Street, who has been meeting with his counterparts from the other projects and reporting back to the young homies.
"We need to keep conversating," says Bow Wow. "There’s a new leadership, and we just need to keep talking and not shooting."
The older guys can help, but much hope is put on the new generation of leaders.
"We are dealing with a new generation who are trying to maintain the tradition of peace, trying to make a difference in a positive way," says Gregory Thomas, supervisor of those gang-intervention workers at CSDI. "Young brothers with respect. Guys that have been through a lot and changed."
The spirit behind the new leadership is that the new violence has heaved the responsibility for peace on the newer generation, and a lot of younger men are stepping up in an effort to stop this madness. They are trying, for example, to prevent a 15-year-old from getting into a car with an AK-47 and shooting another black boy because he lives in a housing project that is similar to his own but has a different name.
"This is not about the Nickerson Gardens or the Jordan Downs or the Imperial Courts," says Michelle Irving, a former Sybil Brand regular turned gang-intervention worker. "Those are just names someone gave three housing projects."
Citing the same impetus that was behind the 1992 treaty, the adults say they are doing this for the children. "It’s sad to see a young person walking down the street worried about if he or she is going to get shot," says Irving, who was "a mother and father at age 14." "They should be walking down the street thinking about school. Thinking about a future. A bright one."
As Aqueela puts it, "Peace is not a destination. It’s a journey with peaks and valleys along the way."
In Watts, that journey just might be never-ending. But at least there’ll be a whole lot of people along for the ride.
President Bush keeps saying America is safer now that Saddam Hussein is out of power. Prez hasn’t been to Watts lately.
The much heralded, often copied and never equaled Watts housing-project gang peace treaty of 1992 has officially imploded, leaving bodies, grieving families and shell casings scattered over the most infamous black neighborhood west of the South Side of Chicago.
The nights of mixing purple, blue and red are over. Gone are the days when the Grape Street Watts Crips from Jordan Downs (purple), the Bounty Hunter Bloods from Nickerson Gardens (red) and the Project, or PJ, Crips from Imperial Courts (blue) could encounter one another without fear of death.
During the wild year of 1989, in the LAPD reporting districts that cover the three main housing projects in Watts, there were 25 homicides. During the height of the treaty in 1997, there were four. So far this year there have been at least seven killings in and around the projects, dozens of shootings, a reported 187 violent crimes and, with all that, the acknowledgment that there is no more treaty.
Long gone are the joyous parties and rowdy football games that homies from the projects threw and played together. Gone are the days when a gangster from the Jordans who had a child with a lady from the Nickerson could have a lazy Sunday-afternoon barbecue in peace. “I can’t even go see my son,” says Grape Street member Dell (“like the computer”) Hester, 21. “I got a baby from a girl in the Nickersons, but I can’t even go there no more. It’s gonna be a real hot summer.”
While many in law enforcement say the treaty has been shaky for years, only recently have actual gang members themselves admitted it. The 1992 treaty, which became official the day before the Rodney King verdict set the city ablaze, was born from older gang members who did not want their children to go through the dread they had long endured. It was marked by celebrations, by families and friends being able to visit each other in different projects without fear.
But in the last year or so, as a new generation of gang members came of shooting age, which is about 13 to 16, word began to spread that the treaty was on the ropes. And in the projects, words, rumors, truth and fiction get spread fast. Soon residents of Nickerson Gardens knew it wasn’t wise anymore to go to Jordan Downs, and folks from there knew they weren’t getting the royal treatment if they popped in at the Nickersons or Imperial Courts.
“We ain’t even thinking about a peace treaty right now,” says Bow Wow, a respected 26-year-old from Grape Street. “We’re just trying to get a cease-fire. Just trying to stop all the shootings.”
Thomas “Tuck” Graham Jr., 20, a Bounty Hunter who was so young when he started banging he doesn’t even remember how he got his nickname, says the days of peace with Grape Street are over.
“We used to see Grape Street members come over here and we’d give them a pass,” says Tuck as he smokes a cigarette and sips on a small bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice. “But now things are different. I see a Grape Streeter, especially in the Nickersons, he ain’t getting no motherfuckin’ passes, especially since they killed my homey.” His homey was Dwayne “Sexy Wayne” Brooks, 22, a Bounty Hunter renowned as a smooth-talking ladies’ man.
The Watts peace treaty certainly did not stop all violence in the housing projects. Internal, in-house disputes were often settled with Mac 10s and Sigs. There were also gang member–vs.–rival gang member acts of violence, but for the most part this was done on an individual level, a personal dispute between, say, a Bounty Hunter and a Grape Streeter over a range of things, from drugs to, of course, women. But the peace treaty pretty much squashed one gang firing on another gang simply because they were from a different hood.
The killing of Sexy Wayne marked a clear return of killing someone just for that very reason. On March 5, there is a minor conflict in Cerritos at a skating rink. For decades, such places have been magnets for many black gang members. Details of the incident are sketchy, but either words or a few fists are briefly exchanged. Bounty Hunters say Sexy Wayne is not involved in the incident. Later, a group of cars drives to the Artesia Transit Yard near Gardena, where there is a Park and Ride MTA station.
“Shortly before 2 a.m., a group of up to 70 cars that had been cruising just happened to stop there,” says Detective John Goodman of the LAPD’s Harbor Division. “There was some kind of confrontation, and there were a lot of shots fired. Brooks was shot and killed. A lot of people saw it. That may have started the escalation in the current violence.”
Street rumors quickly circulate that the shooter was from Grape Street. Brooks, decked out in Blood red, had been with members of the PJ Crips, who have become strange gang fellows of late with the Bounty Hunters.
Perhaps the most unusual result of the latest outbreak is that it has brought the Bounty Hunters, the city’s most notorious Blood gang, closer than ever to the PJ Crips of Imperial Courts, and that alliance against the Grape Street Crips is sending bewilderment throughout the black street-gang community.
Nine miles away from Watts, in Hyde Park, a long way in gangland L.A., Kevin “Big Cat” Doucette, a notorious shot caller of the Rollin’ 60s Crips, is telling his cohorts about that distant gang war. “That’s about the craziest shit I ever heard,” says Big Cat, 45. “The PJs and the Bounty Hunters teaming up against Grape Street. Crips and Bloods teaming up to go at Crips.”
Even law enforcement is surprised by the alliance. “The alliance doesn’t seem plausible or possible, but that’s what we’re hearing,” says Detective Dana Ellison of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Century Station. “The so-called treaty is dead.”
And with the dead treaty comes the return of the payback shooting. Bounty Hunter or PJ Crip gets killed, supposedly by Grape Street, then a Grape Street must die in retaliation. Doesn’t have to be the shooter that gets hit with the payback. Sometimes, doesn’t even have to be a gang member. Just someone living in the rival project will do.
Someone like Jason Harrison.
A week after Sexy Wayne was killed, Harrison, 19, who is not a Grape Street gang member, is gunned down on 102nd Street inside Jordan Downs. It’s on. The next day, the Imperial Courts project is shot up. Then the Nickersons gets sprayed. Then Jordan Downs. Then, then, then.
Sal LaBarbera, the lead homicide detective for the LAPD’s Southeast Division, which covers Watts, says tension is as high as it’s been in a long, long time.
“You can tell the energy level is up in Grape Street,” says LaBarbera, a cool New Yorker straight outta Central Casting. “Guys are on guard duty. Trash cans are lined up at the entrance to the projects. Folks are ready to go. Ready to run into their apartment and get the guns.” He’s right, of course.
It’s a rainy late night inside Jordan Downs on 102nd Street near an entrance to the projects off Juniper Street and 103rd, where two dumpsters the size of Escalades are placed. Young men and teenagers of the 700-unit project are indeed on the lookout for strangers while they smoke chronic and sip Olde English 800, still a favorite after all these years.
Contrary to popular opinion, especially from Westsiders who’ve never been here, Jordan Downs can be a welcoming place, especially at a Saturday-afternoon barbecue or baseball game. You might get some curious glances at first, but then, after a few intros, a couple of beers, it’s usually cool. Certainly a warmer welcome than a Grape Street Crip would get on Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills.
But at night, at least this one (and many others), the place is about as friendly as Uday and Qusay in a bad mood during the Persian Gulf War.
“The fuck you doin’ here? Get the fuck outta here, bitch,” booms a Grape Streeter to me as I slowly drive by. I’m in an Enterprise-rented black Chevy Aveo with doors so flimsy one burst from a Kalashnikov would turn them into Emmenthaler Swiss cheese.
“Hello, officer,” says another, which for years has been a common nighttime greeting to me in Watts. Not a lot of Armenians here. I stop in the lot between buildings 99 and 100 and inform the two Crips that I’m a reporter trying to find out what happened to Jason, trying to humanize him. From nowhere, two more Grape Street Crips appear, one of them standing in a doorway. “You need to leave. We ain’t talking to no reporters.”
I park the Aveo in the lot a short distance from my new buddies, get out of the car, and walk over to the makeshift memorial display of murder candles, yellow roses, a large purple bunny rabbit and a framed photo of Jason Harrison. Scribble a few notes — barely legible later — and head back to the Aveo.
A fifth Grape Streeter, older, like in his 40s, approaches, identifies himself only as Wes, and speaks quietly. “Jason was a good kid. Been knowing him since he was 12. Just had seen him an hour before he got shot, talking to some of the guys, and then I guess he was walking to his grandmother’s, right over there. Be careful.”
I want to talk to the younger gang members, but figure it’s early in my reporting and why push it. At least, that’s my excuse to myself. I drive away.
The next day, a former teacher of Harrison’s praises him. “Jason was just a great, great kid. When I heard what had happened, it felt like I’d been hit in the gut with a baseball bat,” says Gary Miles, a teacher at Markham Middle School and a longtime friend of the Harrison family. “Jason was never involved in any of the Grape Street gang stuff. He was a good, hard-working student. One of those kids, every time you saw him, he’d give you a pound and a hug. Always had a smile. A kid that loved life.
“Lots of people not from around here don’t understand how entrenched people are to their neighborhood, to their set,” says Miles. “Lots of these kids are third-generation gang members from these projects. Forget about being jumped in. These kids are born in.”
Miles, who is from Brooklyn, says the lure of the streets can often be too tempting for a project boy to resist. “Some kids would rather be a part of the hood thing than go on to junior college or a university if they could. It’s that lure. Plus, you throw in the music culture, MTV, and it just adds to the desire. Do I want to be a college football player or do I want to be hood famous? It becomes a seduction.”
Two weeks after he died, Jason Harrison is laid to rest. His funeral, at the Inglewood Mortuary, is overflowing with emotion and mourners. About a hundred guys, guys that grew up together, went to Folsom and Corcoran together, just mingle outside during the services. Jason’s father has “Kodak RIP” shaved into the back of his head. Jason’s nickname was Kodak because he blinked a lot.
His aunt goes on a tirade during her eulogy. “We are here today to take a real good look at our lives. There’s been too many deaths on our streets. When a person takes your life, you don’t take one life. You kill a family. You kill a community.”
The aunt ratchets up her voice. “Today, parents are burying their children. Kids are killing kids. Children are killing, then going to bed snoring.” A purple-clad teenage boy passes out. He starts shaking. Almost no one notices, even the three Crips standing directly behind him. The aunt starts to scream. “He coulda been a gardener, a chauffeur, a movie producer, a cook. We don’t know what Jason coulda been.”
At the Community Self Determination Institute, on the northern border of Watts, executive director Aqueela Sherrills describes the current situation as a “powder keg.”
“It’s the worst it’s been since the treaty in 1992,” says Sherrills, whose own 19-year-old son, Terrell, was killed in 2003 in an unrelated incident. “It’s crazy out there right now.”
Sherrills and his brother Daude, both of whom have been active in the gang peace movement for more than a decade and who have traveled the world speaking about it, say the current problem is a matter of leadership.
The other gangs couldn’t agree more. Many PJ Crips and the Bounty Hunters lay most of the blame on the Grape Street gang, who they say have lost their leadership, which has cut loose a new generation of young gang members to go on shooting sprees.
Daude Sherrills admits the leadership in Grape Street is not what it once was, but also says, “Imperial Courts has a lot of enemies. We’re not responsible for their enemies.
“But the hopelessness and joblessness create an idleness, which can create apathy for life,” he continues. “And that creates a domino effect that leads to murder and mayhem in the streets. Our race is in worse condition than we were before the ’65 riots. Everyone needs to take responsibility. We are fortunate more lives haven’t been lost.”
Throughout the years, though, many lives have been lost in the three housing projects. According to LAPD statistics, from 1989 to May 21 this year, in the three reporting districts, or R.D.s, that cover Jordan Downs (R.D. 1829), Nickerson Gardens (R.D. 1846) and Imperial Courts (R.D. 1849), there have been 202 homicides. During that same period, there have been a startling 6,470 assaults in the three projects. These numbers cover just three reporting districts, not including all of Watts, out of a total of more than 1,000 in the city.
In 2003, as things started to heat up, there were 12 homicides in the three projects. In comparison, that year the entire West L.A. Division, with 63 R.D.s, had three homicides.
“There’s no denying it’s a very violent place,” says Captain Sergio Diaz, commander of the Southeast Division, which covers more than just Watts. “As of May 21, there had been 30 homicides in Southeast Division, an area less than 10 square miles and 140,000 people. That’s 10 times the national average.”
To be closer to the late-night scene, when violence is most likely, and to get a better sense of the mood of the community at its most vulnerable, I decide to move in for a couple of nights at one of the two motels along Wilmington Avenue, between Nickerson Gardens and Jordan Downs.
I have been warned by several gang members not to do this. “But if you do,” laughs Daude Sherrills, “bring your own sheets.” I do. Red 300-count Egyptian cotton. I had been saving them for a special occasion. This wasn’t what I had in mind.
My choices are the Villa Hills, near the railroad tracks off 108th Street, and the Mirror Motel, down on 112th Street. I check out the Villa Hills first. I am somewhat intrigued by the name. There’s not a hill for miles, and to call this place a villa is like calling Fallujah a resort town. Later, I realize the Hills part must have been taken from the slight 5- or 6-foot rise on Wilmington for the railroad tracks, and I guess the Villa part comes from the small bougainvillea near the front of the motel. The rooms go for $40 a night. The manager shows me Room 16. As soon as the door opens, the stench hits your nose like a jab from Larry Holmes. A combination of odors I don’t even want to think about. I tell the guy thanks and head back to check out the Mirror.
The Mirror, painted a faded powder-blue, is a bit larger, two stories, and has 30 rooms. At 4 p.m., there’s only one car in the parking lot. I ask the Indian owner-manager how much for a room for the night. Thirty-five dollars. But then he says something very un-innkeeper-like — he fervently implores me not to rent a room here. “No, no,” he says. “No, you should not stay here. It’s not good around here.” He holds up his left hand and starts shooting off an imaginary pistol. “Boom, boom, boom. Every night, every day. Don’t stay here.”
I’m tempted, but head back and rent Room 16 at the Villa Hills. (I’ll go back to the Mirror another night.) I bring in the sheets. They’re full-size and don’t fit the queen-size bed, but I get two corners on, which is enough. There’s a television that gets Channel 7 and a few others. No porno. There’s a dirty sink and a tiny shower, a ratty dresser, a broken window screen, and walls that appear to have been splattered with something that was probably once cavity blood.
Across the street, Tommy’s Liquor is getting ready to close up at 7 p.m. “It’s not safe here at night,” the clerk says. A couple blocks away, a taco truck stays open later, doing a decent business in the early evening.
As night falls, cars start showing up at the Villa Hills. Some stay for maybe a half-hour. Others, all night. Some guests make a lot of racket arguing, and some are clearly having a good time.
Around 11 p.m., I take the Aveo out for a cruise through the three projects. They seem rather quiet on this night. In Imperial Courts, one lone, young PJ Crip, who won’t give even his nickname, asks, “What we suppose to do? Just let Grape Street shoot at us?”
Still, even at this hour, several front doors are open and many folks appear as relaxed as if they were at a Sunday-afternoon picnic in the park. It takes more than decades of homicide to lock down the residents of Watts.
A short time later, I head back to what Daude Sherrills calls “the only five-star hotel in Watts.” After a while, I go out for a short walk, past the railroad tracks, toward 107th Street. There’s a couple walking the same stretch of forgotten road. I hear at least five gunshots and instinctively duck down a bit, though the shots are not from a nearby passing car. The lady ahead laughs and calls out, “Fraidy cat.” Her companion laughs too.
The next morning, I learn from police that a few blocks away, Keith Moore, 19, of Jordan Downs, was shot to death at 105th and Lou Dillon, in an area of Watts called Fudge Town. These shots are not the only ones of the night. Two other times, gunfire is heard near the motel. Police later say the Fudge Town killing is the only shooting they are aware of. No one calls the cops in Watts just to report gunfire. Someone needs to be hit. If gang members here were good marksmen, the homicide rate in Watts would be world-class bad.
COMING NEXT - PART 2
Wednesday afternoon in the kitchen of Chi Spacca in Los Angeles, Franco Pepe, Italy's greatest pizzaiola, asked the staff where was his flour. Chef Ryan DeNicola, chef Joe Tagorda, and general manager Kim "G" Trac, all looked at each other and said "What flour?"
The saga of Franco Pepe's flour - aka farina - was on.
(For some background, Franco Pepe who we met at his Pepe in Grani pizzeria in Caiazzo, Campagna, was in California to do four pizza cooking demonstrations, two at A16 in San Francisco, two at Mozza, This guy is a fanatic, I mean an absolute nut, about his flour. It's his life. Thirteen hours before he cooks pizzas, he needs to work the flour into dough. The Mozza event, an instant sellout, was set for 1 p.m. Thursday in Chi Spacca. )
Ok, back to our saga .
About twenty minutes later, Nancy Silverton texted me. "Where are you', followed quickly by a "Call me Urgent" Now, in my interpretation of "Urgent" it's a shooting, an accident. an overdose, a death or at least something bad is about to happen. But, having been with Nancy Silverton for so long, her meaning of urgent and mine vary quite a bit. ( Here's my point. less than two minutes ago, she called the house,, this time she said "I've got a bigger problem than yesterday's". - dramatic pause - "I left my lipstick at home.")
So I call her. "We have a problem," Nancy says. "We might not be able to do the event. Franco Pepe is nauseous."
"Like sick?" What do you mean? Like nervous?"
"I need you to go to Rite Aid and get medication."
"What kind? What do I know about nauseous medication?" ( Of my many faults, nausea is not one of them.).
"Ask the pharmacist." She hangs up.
I go to Rite Aid, ask the pharmacist and get some Emetrol.
At Mozza I park in the alley and see Franco and his confidant Luigi. Franco is rubbing his stomach. I hand him the medication . He says. "They have lost my farina. I can't go on with this. We must go back to the Caiazzo. Back to Italy. Everything starts with the knowlege of flour."
Luigi, who speak fluent English. explains.somewhat. but is just as grave. "This is bad, We came to America for this."
I go up in the office. and the tension there is a like a command center for a Delta Force raid on ISIS in Ramadi. The voices are low in decibels, but high in urgency. The man who was supposed to pick up the specially delivered Italian flours at A16 had not picked it up. The flours, the farina. the only flour Franco Pepe would knead, two 25-kilogram bags, was 400 miles away and it was 5 p.m., The mission was clear, get 110.22 pounds of flour to Mozza by midnight.
Kate Green, Liz "Go Go" Hong, Nicole White, Sarah Clarke, and others i'm sure, go into action. with Nancy orchestrating. They find a delivery company that "might" be able to . but at $2,000 up front, "might" don't cut it. Go Go finds a company on line that will do it for $500. That turns out to be misleading. We think of who we know in the San Francisco Bay Area. Nicole says "Call you girlfriend Dominique." I do, in the long shot hope she is about to fly down, but she's at Atelier Crenn. We try storied former Pizzeria Manager Arielle Chernin, but she's out partying somewhere.
Meanwhile, in the Chi Spacca dining room, Franco's stomach has worsened. Everyone confers. "Go to you hotel and relax," I say. Nancy had arranged for him to stay at the W in Hollywood, while his two assistants and trip arranger Jonathan Goldsmith would stay at her house. But, Franco doesn't want to be apart from his team. .
He says something to Luigi. "We all need to be together now."
Kim get them an Uber and l meet them to the house. They sit nervously, refusing my offer of vino rosso. aqua frizzante, and Fritos (Original). They fidget. They tap their feet like their Philly Joe Jones backboning Coltrane.
Then, I turned on CNN. The Italians become riveted by the coverage of the latest ISIS shootouts in St. Denis. Paris. Of that woman who reportedly blows herself up. Of threats to Herald Square. Of lost loved ones. They seem to forget their flour problems in the real problems of the world.
I text Nancy and Kate Green a photo of them "Nothing like watching Isis to relax people." More texts, more calls. meanwhile, at A16, owner Shelley Lindgren is on it. She calling friends and employees. She knows the urgency having just seen Franco work his dough at her restaurant.
She calls a then-un-famous woman who will rise to the occasion. Shelley calls Emily Flannagan, who once worked at Pizzeria Mozza and is now at A16..
Emily, who like Brando, is now known by only using one name, was at home and about to start drinking wine.
"I was just about to have some wine and read a book about wine," said Emily, who clearly seems to have a fixation with wine.. "When Shelley asked me to help her and Franco and Nancy out, I thought, "Go to Mozza and see Nancy and Franco? Fuck, yeah."
Back here, we get the word a courier has been recruited. I tell Franco, he stands up and high fives me.
Still, it was nearing 8 p.m.
At the house, worn out by the ordeal, Franco and his two assistants. go upstairs and pass out.
At 10 p.m. i gather them up and we go to Osteria Mozza. We eat, but keep checking. "Where's my baby?" Franco asks often, referring to the flour. ."On the way". Who knows though. Maybe with the current state of security getting 110 pound of flour on an airplane will be a problem. I mean, I wouldn't let someone on a plane with a 110 pounds of flour.
Finally Kate Green texts. "The fuckin' flour is on the plane. I need a drink."
An hour later, Sarah informs us "The Flour has landed", Who is with it, i think. Neal Armstrong?
But, sure enough, just 'bout midnight. Emily Flannagan walks into Osteria Mozza. Franco Pepe gives her the hug of the week.
The mountain of wealth in the Bay Area reached a new height this week when an auto repair shop opened on San Francisco's elite Nob Hill that requires patrons to reserve two months in advance for tune ups, insists on references and will not work on automobiles valued at less than $200,000.
Dubbed "The Wrench Laundry - an obvious play on words/homage to Napa Valley's revered restaurant The French Laundry - the shop has been already flooded with "reservations" requests and has drawn gawkers - and paparazzi - up to three deep at its California Street address who are eager to see exotic cars and the celebrities who drive them.
"I saw Jay Leno pull up in his orange McLaren P1," said an excited Doug Zamensky, a Southern California restaurant manager on vacation. "He was very nice."
Other celebrity sightings have included , actor Tom Hanks (Bugatti Type 41 Royale), television journalist Hoda Kotb ( Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing), film mogul George Lucas, (Ferrari F50), former NBA great Julius "Dr. J" Erving (Rolls Royce Dawn), painter K.C. "Dutch" Smitherton, (Costin Maserati 450s), and retired British race car driver Mike Hawthorne (D Type Jaguar),
However, the Wrench Laundry has also drawn several protesters who are decrying that growing gap between the rich and the super rich. "The sheer arrogance of this mechanics shop is just another demoralizing indication of the growing disparity between the super rich and the regular rich," said a lawyer who refused to give his name. "I have a $140,000 Audi R8 and i can't get in."
Despite the protests, business has been booming since opening Oct. 13. Attempts by our staff to get a reservations (admittedly bogus) were unsuccessful. The Wrench Laundry has taken measure to ensure against such fake attempts, - such as ours - by requiring potential customers text over a photo of their driver's license along with a photo of themselves in their automobile.
Approved customers are then emailed a confirmation along with a "menu" . A tune up at the Wrench Laundry can cost $10,000 while a simple alignment run about to $1750.
Owners and mechanics at the Wrench Laundry refused to be interviewed for this story.
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Published L.A.Times Feb. 28, 1997
Internationally celebrated photojournalist Gordon Parks was on his own at 15, with both his parents dead. Hungry, broke and shivering on a freezing evening in St. Paul, Minn., he confronted a train conductor who had a wad of money. Parks pulled a switchblade.
It was the only time he almost committed a major crime, Parks, 84, told a group of Verbum Dei High School students Thursday in Watts.
"At that moment, in that white man's face, I saw my father's black face," he said. "And I heard my father say, 'What the hell are you doing?' So I looked at the conductor and said: 'You wanna buy a knife?' "
He has inspired generations of African Americans through his photography, writings, movies, music and, perhaps most importantly, his never-say-die spirit.
And that spirit was out in full force Thursday when Parks spoke to students from Verbum Dei High School at the Watts Labor Community Action Committee Center.
"We have brought you history today," said Janine Watkins, the center's special events coordinator. More than 100 students sat in rapt attention as Parks took them through highlights of his life.
For an hour, the dapper former Life magazine photographer delighted the group with his humor, philosophy and tales of growing up black in the Midwest during the Depression.
"If you want to do something, nothing can stop you," said Parks, who wrote and directed feature films such as "Shaft" and "The Learning Tree." "You can do anything you want to do if you want it bad enough."
Parks credited his deeply religious parents with giving him the proper values. In order to provide a skin graft for a young girl who had been badly burned in a house fire, Parks' father, Jackson, donated skin from his back.
Later, someone asked Parks' father if the girl's family had thanked him and sent flowers.
"My father told the man, 'I didn't do it for thanks. I didn't do it for flowers. I did it for the girl.' "
One student asked Parks, who has inspired so many, who was his inspiration. After mentioning his parents again, Parks said his life changed when he viewed Farm Service Administration photographs depicting the devastating effects of the Depression.
"I thought I could show racism the way the FSA showed the Depression," he said.
A short while after seeing those photos, he sold his first photograph to the Washington Post. It showed a black cleaning woman holding a mop and a broom standing before the American flag. Parks compares the shot to Grant Wood's painting "American Gothic." Today, it is Parks' most famous photograph.
In 1949, he became Life's first black staff photographer and traveled the world. One of his most famous articles was a profile of Red Jackson, a Harlem street gang leader with whom he lived for three months. A generation later, Parks' reputation helped him gain access to the Black Panthers.
"Once we were riding around in Berkeley and one of the Panthers had a gun," Parks said. "I told him my 35 [millimeter camera] was more powerful than his 45."
Three weeks later, Parks said, that Panther was dead.
Margret Triplett, an English teacher at all-boys Verbum Dei, said she wanted her class to take away an appreciation for the past.
"He shows that it doesn't matter where you're from, you have an opportunity to move forward," Triplett said.
Derrick Hogan, 13, who appeared somewhat awe-struck by Parks, said: "I learned about history. People think it's bad now, but it was worse back then."
Parks, who is still busy writing and composing and who was honored Thursday by the Director's Guild of America, had high praise for the Watts Labor Action Community Center. In all his travels around the world, he said, he had never seen a place so committed to the youth of the neighborhood.
Wearing a stylish double-breasted blue blazer, silver handkerchief and brown plaid pants, the legendary photojournalist posed for pictures with the group and left the students with one last bit of advice:
"Don't let anybody tell you you can't do something. Be prepared and make yourself so special that they'll have no choice. They'll have to hire you. There is no obstacle you can't overcome. There are no excuses."
Gordon Parks was born in 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas. He died in 2006 in New York City, The photograph is by Alfred Eisenstaedt, if that means anything to you.
Hello, World!
