Sympathy for the Devil: Crime Stats Say L.A.'s Streets Are Safer Than Ever, So Why Are Gang Hoods Still So Bloody?

Top dogs Da Brat, Zen Baca and Tony V weigh in, along with street players D-Black, Marky-D and Mauricio

A A A Comments (10) By Sam Slovick Wednesday, Nov 26 2008

For more photos, view Sam Slovick and Luigi Ventura's slideshow "Sympathy for the Devil: Inside Look at Gang Hoods."

Sam Slovick

Hemmed up in the hood: Just another day in Watts

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We will take that most famous shield, the most famous badge in the world — and whatever little . . . tarnish exists, it will be wiped clean, and it will be the most brilliantly shining badge of any in the United States.

—William J. Bratton, October 2002

On the day his father left for good, Mauricio’s father had some parting words for his son: “Whatever you do, be the best.”

“That’s what he told me,” Mauricio remembers. “So I said, ‘I’m going to be the best fucking gangster in L.A.’”

This happened when Mauricio was 12, the year he started banging. Three years later, on February 24, 2005, Mauricio — not his real name because he is in this country illegally — stopped by his mom’s job to get 20 bucks to buy a part for his bike.

“I kissed my mom and told her I loved her,” Mauricio says. “I was on my beach cruiser, near Gage, near the fucking football field. I went to the school and got some water, then I was ready to go home and get something to eat and shit.

“I was going to the sidewalk. I saw a white Impala pull around the corner. I see two guys looking at me, and a homey I recognized got out of the car. I knew him from before. I used to be with his sister when I was 13. I seen the gun. I was trying to hop the fence to get away.

“He started dumping. I turned a little. I remember seeing the bullets cutting through the grass, then, poof, dirt flying ... like in a fucking movie.

“First one was in the back. It made me do a turn to the left. It went through by my spine, through a disc — missed the nerves. It broke my intestines and [went] in my liver. Then another one hit me in the side, in and out. The other in the arm.

“I was conscious. I was on the floor looking up. A clear blue sky like I never seen one like that before. I was like, fuck, I was having fucking flashbacks of my life. I seen my whole life in 30 seconds. I was a little baby and fucking up till the time I was there getting shot.

“I was on the floor, taking deep breaths. Trying not to panic. Then I saw another fool hit me up, he stood over me, like, ‘Where you from, homey?’

“Then the ambulance came. That was the first time I got shot. I was barely, like, 15. But here I am.”

Here he is, all 18 years and five bullets of him, a plastic tube permanently inserted inside his reconstructed intestine, the most unlikely college freshman, waiting with a bunch of dignitaries and neighborhood school kids to meet Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, a city that seems to get safer every year. Just this week, Congressional Quarterly came out with its annual City Crime Rankings, and Los Angeles has improved its position from the 103rd highest-crime city in 2007 to the 158th in 2008. Mauricio, inactive in gang life for several months, is one small part of the turnaround. And now that he’s about to meet the mayor, Mauricio is ecstatic. It’s as if he’s been on a trajectory to this moment for 18 years and didn’t even know it.

“I just had a dream about it, like, three days ago . . . that I was talking to him,” Mauricio says. “It just came through. I’ve always been like that. Like I know who’s barely about to call before the fucking phone even rings. Hey, take my picture with him after.”

Mauricio’s psychic scar tissue is substantial but the prognosis, oddly, is excellent. He’s hopeful for the future. With a lineage traceable to a cartel in Toluca, Mexico, Mauricio inherited brutality as a birthright. Jumped in, hemmed up, locked up, jammed up, searched and cuffed by the LAPD more times than he can count before his nuts dropped (and he’s pretty good at math). Mauricio, in his usual long white T-shirt, baggy jeans and shaved head, is transfixed as he watches Villaraigosa work his mayoral magic at the mike here at L.A. Trade-Tech College. The mayor is unveiling something called the Triple Crown Initiative, a college-prep and work-experience program seeded with a $1.2 million grant from the James Irvine Foundation to bring high school students from the Santee Education Complex to Trade-Tech for classes in tourism, culinary arts and other fields.

“Today we are building a bridge that connects two campuses less than a mile apart, and which will lead to dreams and real options for our kids,” the mayor says for the record. “At a school where almost one in two kids now drops out, our students will be graduating with a double diploma, and with double the opportunity.”

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LATeacher 07/30/2011 12:07:00 AM

As a teacher in urban LA I can tell you that poor attitude, poor parenting and poor choices are the cause of all of this. Parents who let their kids walk out of the house looking like gangsters and prioritize a big screen TV over books in the home are the teachers -and society's - biggest nightmare. It doesn't help that when business does try to relocate in these areas and provide jobs, their stores are tagged on and become unsafe.
Efrain Rojas 12/22/2008 5:51:00 AM

Shame on the Weekly for thinking they can "connect" with latinos by printing incoherent drivel. It is misguided politically correct bullshit. If you actually got to know the people that clean your offices, you would quickly realize we are more conservative than you care to admit. I don't know what offends me more, gangbangers or effete editors legitimizing sociopathic behavior.
samantha 12/20/2008 10:06:00 PM

Once again the L.Weekly with its fine reporters tells the true story of what is going on in this city.. Well we can thank our L.A. Mayor, he runs around with his PR people telling the public, "L.A. this has been the safest city since 1950" so many inoccent young men have been cut down by illegals, and we still do nothing.....the mayor can with the stroke of his pen, do away with Los Angeles being the sanctuary city, and make sure the council puts on the ballot Jamiels Law, which goes after these criminals terrifing our citizens.... another thing we can do it get this mayor out of office.....he so busy posing for photo opps, or having a statue of him made.......one thing the Weekly andyou can do, is let the public know about Walter Moore, who has limited funds, and need the help of the media to let people know there is a viable candiate to r;un against this egocentric mayor......help.....please contact me to arrange for an interview with Walter....thanks and keep up the good work
AAAAANDRE 12/07/2008 6:24:00 AM

Let's see??? "So Why Are Gang Hoods Still So Bloody?" Maybe... because the Mayor is "buddy-buddy" with all the Illegal Alien Gang Bangers who live there??? (see Photo) Instead of helping them go home to terrorize their own country.
Janet 12/04/2008 7:53:00 PM

This story has to be a joke!! All this wasted space trying to make people believe that gang bangers are the good guys and the cops are the bad ones. I couldn't get pass the first page with all the cursing. The Mayor should be ashamed of himself for associating with these gang bangers. Next time Maurcio or his friend gets shot don't call LAPD. This story shows just how desperate and low the LA Weekly has to go to try and get readers. THis is not journalism, its a piece of crap.
Kevin 12/03/2008 12:23:00 AM

I love how the author puts D-Black and the other guy on the same plane as Chief Bratton and Sheriff Baca...like these 2 officers owe those schmoes any explanation for anything? And really, as if these 2 dudes are gonna say anything different? James Ellroy, you ain't, pal...the hipcat speak...wack, as they say in DA hood. What a crap article...
Evan 11/30/2008 4:09:00 PM

I've never seen an article or interview in which a former gangbanger, dealer or other convicted social plaguebearer claimed responsibility for themselves. Veiled or unveiled, laced with curses or written in the most eloquent prose, the fingers always point outward, and the message is "It's Not My Fault." For all the talk of balls dropping in this article, what really takes balls is saying "I was wrong."
Derek 11/30/2008 5:58:00 AM

Is this article for real? The Catholic references? The use of the word "rite"? What a load of nonsense. Spare me please...
Greg 11/30/2008 4:39:00 AM

Pretty ambitious, but a difficult read, right? (Oops, I mean "rite"?) (Huh?) Impossible-to-follow stats that jump from city to county to state. In truth, regarding violent crime stats, I've lost count of how many police funerals I've attended over more than three decades, and hey, I'm pretty good with numbers, y'know? Maybe me and Mauricio are intellectual soul-mates. And did I miss something in the news, but since when did Inglewood come under the auspices of the LAPD? To answer the question proferred by the article's headline, the reason gang neighborhoods are so bloody is because there are still murderous gangsters running the show in some parts of town. Duh. And why is that? Because society has not had the will to remove the gangsters from our midst. This isn't rocket science, really. Fortunately the modern leadership of Bratton/Baca/Rice seems to be chipping away at decades of intertia that allowed the gang problem to get completely out of control, thanks to the neglect of politicians still don't quite get it. Nice try at blaming the cops, though. Hell, everybody does, so why not you?
janet 11/29/2008 12:37:00 AM

I can't get past the first 2 pages, this is so contrived as a "story" not as anything resembling an honest attempt at analysis. Starting with illegal alien Mauricio as a kid setting out to be the best gangbanger in the world, shot in the back graphically a few years later, meeting up with "his homie" the Mayor at a speech, where the writer talks about driving around 2 other teen-aged gangbangers "smoking Black and Whites" (as some sort of signal from and to the too-cool), using as another example of how the Cops put Down the Youth, a 12-year old Latino called Juan who's just biking home from a job at a grocery store, but is shaken down by the cops for acting cagey... ENOUGH. Juan at the age of 12 is not supposed to have a "job at a market after school," he's supposed to be studying. -- -- If his parents send him to work instead of going home to study, or into some age-appropriate program at school like L A Bridges, STAR or many others that are offered for enrichment and fun as well as after-school help, these parents are to blame. Making the kid work and bike home instead, they're lucky he even shows up at work, instead of banging already like most of the other kids. -- The cops know that, and the parents clearly choose not to -- they're living like they do in Mexico, where you see kids as young as 5-6 working at gas stations, bakeries, as waiters and busboys at restaurants, even as late as midnight on school nights. That's NEGLIGENT PARENTING IN OUR CULTURE and the cops seem to be the only ones looking out for the kids, keeping it real. _ Mauricio the illegal and most-excellent gangbanger who's already committed more felonies than anyone should and still be out on our streets, getting an "I believe in you" from the Mayor, is one of those surreal Only-in-L A things, that just has one's head spinning on too many levels: Why are taxpayer citizens supposed to pay for him instead of sending him "home?" -- Somehow we're supposed to feel responsible for all this, as seen from the vantage point of a wanna-be-cool writer most interesting in telling a graphic story with "colorful characters" with the cops and "the Man" as stock villains? Who cares where he "goes" with this drivel, it's a huge waste of 10 damn pages of online print, and a whole hardcover Weekly feature.