Gang Crimes as Hate Crimes
Activists hope that the recent high-profile murder convictions of Avenues gang members will rais
According to Luisa Prudhomme, the night her 21-year old son Anthony was murdered in his Highland Park apartment by two armed members of the Avenues street gang, he was wearing a T-shirt that said, "Keep the Peace."
"They killed him for no reason," his mother said at a press conference on Sunday, part of an event called the Walk Against Hate. "He was in his bed and they just shot him in the head."
Anthony Prudhomme was not a gang member. The young African American man, who worked two jobs, had just graduated recording school, where he studied to become an engineer and producer. On August 1, four members of the Avenues - Gilbert "Lucky" Saldana, 27; Alejandro "Bird" Martinez, 28; Fernando "Sneaky" Cazares, 25; and Porfirio "Dreamer" Avila, 31 - were found guilty of executing a barrage of hate crimes in Highland Park, including killing Anthony, in what federal prosecutors presented in court as a part of a chilling racial cleansing plot against African Americans and their Latino friends by Latino gang members.
Luisa Prudhomme is a member of the San Gabriel chapter of Parents of Murdered Children (POMC), a nationwide organization providing emotional support, advocacy, and awareness for the family and friends of victims of violent crime. Holding up their banner, with photos of their murdered children on their T-shirts and posters, they joined Project Islamic Hope founder and former Crips gang member Najee Ali on Sunday afternoon, in the blistering heat outside Highland Park's Ramona Hall Community Center, for the one-mile Walk Against Hate.
Ali said the walks are more than just protest: They give the young people in the community hope and a sense that activists are out there fighting for their futures, for jobs and higher wages. At an August 21 press conference announcing the walk, held at the headquarters for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Ali was joined by a panel of community leaders, including Reginald Mims, field representative for Local 660 of the Service Employees International Union, Angelica Salas, executive director of CHIRLA, and Randy Jurado Ertll, executive director of El Centro de Acción Social.
The first order of business, they said, was to de-escalate black-vs.-Latino tensions among the youth, and one place to start is within the gangs.
The gangs are escalating their senseless attacks on the community, Luisa Prudhomme stressed. "They are festering and destroying our city."
Twenty-year-old Teresa Del Rio's murderer is still at large. "The shooter shot someone else, and then he was able to get out of the country through the underground, come back in, and shoot my daughter," said Anna Del Rio, who is also a member of POMC.
"The whole point of the Alliance is to educate and empower young people," said Ali. "It's not the old folks' movement. When we speak to them we let them know that we are addressing their issues."
Ali has been walking a lot this year. As a board member of Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network, and cofounder with Christine Chavez of the Latino & African American Leadership Alliance, Ali has emerged as a powerful voice for peace, taking on such racially divisive issues as the Black Minutemen and the plight of the illegal immigrants left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. Other recent demonstrations included the Walk for Justice & Peace inside L.A. County jails and a walk in memory of Deliesh Allen-Roberts, the 17-year-old who was shot to death by a gang member as she was leaving school, and the "Rally Against Rape" in response to the gang rape of an 11-year old black child in Northern California.
According to Ali, the LAPD has been very candid about admitting to escalating episodes of racial tensions throughout the city, including the rash of racially motivated shootings of African-American men and their Latino supporters by Latino gang members. Getting the politicians to pay attention has not been easy, though. "They've been silent and invisible, and I believe it is because they feel that if they speak out, they will lose their constituencies." Ali said. "I can give you many examples: When people were getting killed in L.A. County prisons, there was no type of outcry from the elected officials. Activists kept trying to make people aware of these injustices."
Though POMC's members include families who have lost loved ones in gang-on-gang shootings, none of the victims being remembered in the Walk Against Hate were gang members. POMC's Ann Kennedy explained that the question comes up constantly and it's a sensitive issue with these families. "People believe it's only gang-on-gang. It's not. It's simply murder," said Kennedy, whose 32-year-old son Brian Ring was murdered by a gang member four and a half years ago in Phoenix, Arizona.
Activists have long complained that it's hard to get law enforcement to classify escalating episodes of gang violence as hate crimes. Patricia Cardona, who is Inter-Group Relations Coordinator for CHIRLA, admitted she doesn't have statistics showing how many hate crimes are being misclassified, except to say that it was "many more."
"We do find, a lot of the time, that LAPD takes the hate crimes as gang-related issues," Cardona explained. "We have a hate-unit task force here; we also work with the county, and we have partnerships with over 37 community organizations who are trying to work with LAPD to classify these crimes as hate crimes so that this issue is actually given the attention that is needed."
Activists agree that community outreach is a big part of it, as are ongoing efforts by grassroots leaders to bring more jobs and higher wages into troubled neighborhoods. "It's great that they're doing this," declared one Highland Park resident standing on the lawn of the Ramona Community Center, observing the activists from the sidelines. A longtime resident of Highland Park, she wanted to remain nameless but believed that racial tensions are escalating. "I've owned a home here for ten years and the shootings are getting worse. When they fixed downtown, people moved here because it was cheaper. But we've got all these gang members getting out of prison after 10 years. You can't get a job with a prison record. So how can someone pay $1,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment?"
Luz Ruiz's son Roberto was 23 when gang members who were trying to crash a Highland Park birthday party shot him nine months ago. There is now a $75,000 reward for the killers, Ruiz says proudly, including that she isn't afraid of retaliation by gang members because of her visibility with POMC. "What would I be fearing? The gangs already took our hearts," she said.
"The gang members don't have the guts to come after the mothers and the families," Del Rio agreed. "They don't scare me. They're cowards. Besides, I have nothing to lose at this point. They murdered my baby and that is the worst thing that can happen to a mother. There is nothing left to fear."
Kennedy summed it up. "The hardest words you will ever have to say are: 'My child was murdered.'"
They gathered in a circle and Ali led a prayer for "peace, love and diversity," then the moms and activists took to the troubled Highland Park streets with a simple message.
"Anyone should have the right to live anywhere they want to," Prudhomme said. "This can't happen in L.A."
Published: 08/31/2006
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