The growing brown/black conflict in Los Angeles: unimaginable violence and bloodshed

[Shakespeare]

This is just the latest of a series of killings connected to violence between latino and black gangs in the Los Angeles area. It's horrifying and heartbreaking, and I don't know what officials can do to bring an end to it. If only these two groups would realize the power they would have if they united, that they're much more allies than they are (imagined) enemies.

I'm not sure how much coverage it's getting nationally, but it's a major, major problem right now in SoCal.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/03/06/state/n222611S66.DTL&tsp=1

(03-07) 11:22 PST Los Angeles (AP) --


A 13-year-old boy picking lemons outside his house was gunned down by an unknown killer in the latest of a string of shootings that have victimized children and teens around the city in recent weeks.


Police called to the Echo Park area by reports of a shooting found Anthony Ezquiel Escobar lying on the ground at about 8 p.m. Thursday, the Police Department said in a statement.


He had been shot several times and died at a hospital.


The boy had gone to pick lemons from a tree outside his home, police said. His uncle, John Aguilar, went outside to see what was delaying him and found him lying on the ground.

[Name removed]

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[Shakespeare]

2. Wow. Please don't turn this thread into a flamewar about white v. minority discrimination.

This is a serious, serious problem with a lot of wasted young lives. Please save your snark for something else.

[Name removed]

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[Hugabear]

3. Don't expect the corporate fascist structure in this country to step in and do much

Black-on-brown violence serves their needs. Let the minorities fight among themselves. Kill them all, let God sort them out.

[Shakespeare]

4. Sadly, I think there's a lot of truth to that.

And it's about to tear Los Angeles apart right now.

[MaryCeleste]

7. No it tearing the lower economic apart. The rest of LA doesn't care as long

as its not in their neighborhood. The rich and powerful don't care what happens to the proles.

[Shakespeare]

8. Then you don't understand LA very well.

Yeah, it's hitting a lot of us pretty hard, even if we're not directly affected by it. LA is not strictly a rich v. poor city.

It affects ALL of us here, and most of us really do understand that. I'm just at a loss for how to begin to solve the problem, as are most, including those in the neighborhoods most immediately involved (Glassell Park, Echo Park, etc.).

[MaryCeleste]

11. I view LA as the whole megalopolis

And I don't think the most of the people give a damn about the gangs and the poor if it does not impact them. Note that is not just an LA issue.

[Shakespeare]

12. I stand by my statement. It's nowhere NEAR as black and white as you suggest.

Pun definitely not intended.

[MaryCeleste]

13. Given the economic issues, espcially housing, few people have time to do much outside their own

at times desperate circumstances.

Yes its a negative view, but its how I see things

[Shakespeare]

14. Well, considering I live in Hollywood (and have for years)...

...I do believe I'll go with my own experience and not the generalized opinion of someone living elsewhere.

[huskerlaw]

19. I'm with Shakespeare

I also live in Los Angeles. I'm white and I live in one of the upper class neighborhoods. But am I unaffected? No. Do I care? Hell yes.

If you think this city is that separated, you need to step out of Beverly Hills once in a while. Or look beyond Hollywood's portrayal of Los Angeles. Because I assure you, "real LA" is quite economically diverse and the neighborhoods aren't nearly as separate as you seem to think they are.

[Kajsa]

28. Shakespeare, the entire area, dubbed the

Los Angeles Basin area is affected!

I couldn't agree with you more.

Those of us down here behind the Orange Curtain
have the same news programs and we know that
we are only 30-40 minutes away from LA.

It is so sad to see/hear day after damn day at least
one story a day of a young person, an innocent
bystander, shot down by gang members.

The day before this young man was killed, a family
of four was shot to death by gang members, for
no reason whatsoever. They were driving home
in their car, minding their own business and they
were shot down like they were targets at a shooting range!

Yep, I'm nailing it down to gang members as the credo
is the innocent bystanders are " collateral damage" or
required targets for initiation rites.
And I am referring to ALL gang members working under
the rules of their gang.

The greater LA/OC area has NOT become a war zone, YET.
However, some pockets within the greater LA area
are becoming just that.

[Speck Tater]

18. I once actually heard an L.A. cop refer to gang neighborhood ...

... shooting as a "self-cleaning oven".

[ulysses]

5. not much to say about this, other than

a long-winded rant about people not knowing who it is that's hitting them in the head...which wouldn't do anyone any good, so I'll settle for a rec for now.

[MaryCeleste]

6. Its real and its happening, and not just in gangs

There have been questions raised if "browns will support blacks" in the election as well. Some credit the Hispanic vote for keeping Hillary Clinton in the race, at least in Texas.

[Shakespeare]

9. There's been a lot of unrest in area high schools, too (RE not just gang-related)

There are a couple of community groups that've formed to address that, but man...they've really got their work cut out.

[Retrograde]

15. wait - didn't Miss Laura take care of that?

Whatever happened to her Gang Taskforce anyway? Haven't heard a thing about it in years, so I assumed any problems were solved /sarcasm

[Shakespeare]

16. Apparently, she never got the memo about LA as the mother of all gang hotbeds.

It's really, really sad that there's been no effort on the national level--as this reaches well beyond LA--to address the problem. And it affects all of us, even if indirectly.

[troubleinwinter]

21. Hard to see any solution until there are decent JOBS.

If there were decent JOBS, such as union manufacturing, people would work, and work together and learn to know one another. If a manufacturing plant were dropped in the middle of it with 5,000 or 15,000 jobs, those jobs would be filled. People don't have an alternative.

[earth mom]

17. The gang bangers were one of the reasons why we left So Cal.

That and the fact it was too damn crowded and too damn expensive to live there and this was back in the late 90s.

With the housing crisis hitting the place so hard now, it's gonna get really ugly. :scared:

[2Design]

20. following example - usa is war bully and uses bombs, bullets, to kill - same thing n/t

[barbtries]

22. yes - i've been saying much the same for years.

my daughter was murdered in los angeles (san pedro) in 2001 - not shot, not gang or race related. as a result i became active in an anti violence group called Justice for Murdered Children. i also attended grief counseling at a homicide survivors' group.

i did not get active until AFTER my daughter was killed. over the years, i can think of three people - THREE - who were and/or are active in our group but were not personally affected by the death of a close loved one. that's not even a judgment per se - certainly i would have to likewise judge myself and many if not all of my friends whose children were murdered in LA - that's just a fact. most people in los angeles and everywhere else are very busy making a living, raising their children, doing whatever. many of them volunteer part of their precious time, but the issues are almost as many as the people. how does one choose one cause over others when all are worthy?

i marched in the streets of los angeles against the murder of our young. the march ended at a community park where people spoke and the various survivors' and activists' groups had set up booths. and an hour or two into it, i felt deeply, deeply discouraged. we were preaching to the choir: there was virtually nobody present who had not lost a child, a brother, a sister, a parent.

and i am sure that it is not that people don't care. they're busy. their children are still alive. until it is you, it will never be you.

that is point one. now to respond to your comment (sorry for running on). i have also trained in preparation and gone into the CYA as a teacher of victim impact classes to youthful offenders. many of these young men are gang members. their crimes are as serious as they come. i found it difficult and disheartening and i tried to impart this to these young men: the biggest fucking thug in the world is in the white house, killing people all over the world. who am i to tell these young hopeless incarcerated poor badly raised barely educated angry kids to stop hurting and killing each other?!

i mean shit runs downhill. in the united states the violence is coming straight from the top. and yeah it is ugly and in your face at street level, and i will not stop trying to stem that flow of blood. but - shit runs downhill. we have an administration that took this country into its first ever war of aggression by selling a pack of lies to the people and to the congress. a president who openly disdains the law. the only people getting rich are war profiteers and greedy friends of the bushes, as opportunities are shut off one by one to the least fortunate among us. it sucks.

[elizfeelinggreat]

24. so true

Thank you for sharing that, it hits a nerve.

[2Design]

26. many in the service are there for a sense of family and belonging -

these same children had parents who made sure they were safe and lived in safe neighborhoods - then they go to war and kill people and that has got to mess with your mind when you are brought up with being safe - we have cities where murders are a daily thing - these same young people would not go into those neighborhoods but are forced to go into neighborhoods in strange countries, break down doors, and shoot anyone out of fear they might be the enemy. They objectify the people into titles 'enemy', insurgent, al gaida, etc. This is how it is justified and then we wind up with abu grab and other atrocities that are worse then what was being done before we got there.

I am sorry you lost a child in the war within america that everyone is ignoring while we train more young people to become killers and will possibly go crazy as the oklahoma city bombers or others have done after having served in the armed forces - killing people for sport - the mission was to protect but it becomes protecting themselves from perceived enemies - wrong place - wrong time

[barbtries]

23. this story says nothing about who killed this child

"Police had no suspects Friday and they asked for witnesses to come forward."

this story is old. people are getting murdered daily in los angeles, daily, and it has been going on for years. and it is not primarily race related: those are the murders that get the press. i don't know the statistics, but i will assert that the majority of the murders that happen in los angeles are brown on brown or black on black.

i know many people whose children were murdered in los angeles, because my daughter was murdered in los angeles and one vital way for me to work through my grief was to work toward the end of violence where i lived. circumstances run the gamut. but it would be missing the forest for the trees to limit it to a discussion of race. it's about poverty, hopelessness, and violence that is endemic in the culture.

i also have to add how many of my friends have expressed their anger at the characterizations made in the press and the police's standard statement "may have been gang related." i honestly do not know where the parents of murdered gang members go for comfort, because i've met no more than one in my travels since 2001. what needs to be understood is that innocent people are dying violently and prematurely every day by murder. most of the stories i have personal knowledge of never made the papers. some didn't even get a press release by the LAPD.

[krkaufman]

25. I saw something quite scary about this on some TV show called 'Gangland'

I'll see about posting a copy if I can't find one on the 'nets.

[Irishonly]

27. It's Happening in the Inland Valley also

The murders here very seldom make the LA news. Right before Christmas a young man I had known for years and considered him part of my family was killed. He was shot five times right in front of his home. There was no motive for the killing except the police think it may have been a gang initiation. He was not a member of a gang and was a typical 22 year old. There have been no arrests and the case seems like it is going to get filed in a drawer.

Like all of the young people killed by senseless violence he was so much more that a statistic. He was a son, brother, uncle, boyfriend and friend. When my daughter was younger he used to watch her when I went to chemo. He would take her to movies and swimming and he became her big brother.

Too many of our young people are being taken away. The violence has to stop and we all need to work together. The sound of his mother's anguished cries is burned in my heart forever. No parent should ever have to go through the hell she and all of the parents of murdered children have had to endure.

[GreenTea]

29. What in the fuck are you talking about? Are you for real?

"If only these two groups would realize the power they would have if they united"

"United" doing what, selling drugs together? Perhaps endorsing a candidate and getting involved in the political system? Maybe getting a baseball league together? Maybe starting an online business together selling flowers?

These are extremely poor, violent, undereducated areas.

I despise this cutesy-pie bullshit line some always use, "If only these two groups would realize the power they would have if they united" and then offer NOTHING or how and what would they unite for and why?

Then, they just move on to the violent acts....offering nothing how they "two groups" would get together...but only use that same old hilarious line....Tell us, "get together" doing what? How does this magic occur? Perhaps, they'll "get together" building new drug free playgrounds in the area and throw drug-free dances? "What power", if they got together? A new voting block? Don't make me laugh...Get fucking real!