INTERVIEW WITH A COP KILLER

This article appeared in the Cot 21, 2010 issue of the L.A. Weekly. 

ABEL AND STONEY

Carlos "Stoney" Velasquez receives a visitor on the fourth floor of the Twin Tower Jail, an area so secure it's used by just one inmate at a time. Velasquez, 26, has been incarcerated almost constantly since he was 13, graduating from juvenile hall to the California Youth Authority, Los Angeles County jail and state prison.

Now, possibly facing California's rarely exercised death penalty if convicted for the 2008 shooting death of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Abel Escalante, he doesn't seem overly concerned.

"It's no biggie," he says, his grin more disconcerting than the graphic gang tattoos covering his arms and neck. "I don't really worry. Maybe sometimes, but not really. Of course I want to get out. But what can I do?"

It is a biggie to a lot of people. Escalante's family and friends. The extended family of deputies who worked with 27-year-old Escalante at the county jail.  Law enforcement in general, especially the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

"Velasquez was the shooter," says Deputy District Attorney Phillip Stirling of the Crimes Against Peace Officers division. "Our goal is to seek justice and the truth — and we have the right people."

Stirling says eyewitnesses, cell-phone calls made from jail and "side-to-side conversation he made at the old Parker Center with [co-defendant Guillermo] Hernandez" will sink Velasquez.

Authorities contend that Velasquez, an Avenues gang member, killed Escalante outside the victim's childhood home in Cypress Park in the early hours of Aug. 2, 2008, just nine days after the gangbanger was released from state prison.

Escalante, a former Army reservist, was getting in his car to drive to work when he was shot several times. Velasquez's cell phone was very active right after the 5:38 a.m. shooting. Federal authorities and the LAPD obtained taped phone conversations — including some made to state prisoners with illegally smuggled cell phones — and used those conversations to put together evidence that led to Velasquez's arrest on Drew Street on Dec. 12, 2008.

The District Attorney's Office has not been able to prove theories that Escalante was killed because he was a deputy.

The theory among some police holds that he was shot as payback for the bloody February 2008 street shootout between the Los Angeles Police Department, Danny "Klever" Leon and Velasquez's brother, Jose Gomez, which left Leon dead and Gomez wounded.

The deputy was not involved in that shootout, which led to the shutdown of the infamous Leon crime family of Drew Street. But some in law enforcement saw the slaying of a Sheriff's Department deputy as revenge for the successful actions of the Los Angeles cops who felled Leon.

But, Stirling says, "I think Velasquez just went into Cypress Park because he's a gang member who wanted to kill someone. It might have something to do with his brother and Klever getting shot. [Or] it might have been because many of his homies got murdered by [rival gang] Cypress Park" and he mistook the deputy for a rival gang member.

The key evidence is a series of taped phone conversations in which Velasquez allegedly admits to co-defendant Guillermo "Flea" Hernandez and others that he was the deputy's killer — but says he didn't know he was killing an officer.

During pretrial testimony in Los Angeles Superior Court in September, when Judge William R. Pounders ordered Velasquez and Hernandez to stand trial for murder next year, a witness said, "Stoney said he fucked up." And one LAPD detective said, "He shot someone who he thought was a rival gang member — but it was actually a cop."

Stirling and the Los Angeles Police Protective League are upset with the L.A. Times for printing the names of pretrial-testimony witnesses, including a 15-year-old. Yet Stirling admits the vicious Avenues gang would have figured out these witnesses' names, and probably "green-lighted" them for attacks. Still, he grumbles: "The Times just made it easier for them."

Asked by the Weekly if he shot Escalante, Velasquez says, "No. Of course I'm going to say I didn't."

His upper left arm is covered by a tattoo of a fur-coat-wearing, bullet-riddled skeleton wearing a brimmed hat — the Avenues symbol. Velasquez joined the gang when he was 13, became a member of the notorious Drew Street clique, and now says, "Where I grew up you got to join the gang. It's like the street is calling your name. And, yeah, I answered." 

Authorities describe him as being "as hard-core as they get in the Avenues."

Velasquez seemed surprised that a stranger had come to find out about a man accused of shooting another stranger dead. "I don't have much visitors. I haven't had a visitor for months."

He says he wanted to be an astronaut as a kid, and that he enjoyed Jim Carey movies. He never really knew his dad.  Both his mother and his wife are in custody. He reads in jail, and the first book he mentions is The Princes of Tides, by Pat Conroy.. 

When asked "Did you know Abel?" Velasquez smiled, like it was a name he should know.  "Who?" he asked. Abel. He smiled again, shook his head. Abel Escalante, he's told.

"Oh, yeah. Man, I don't even know his first name."

After learning of the interview, his attorney, Michael Adelson, admonished him for speaking to a reporter and sought a protective order to prevent reporters from interviewing his client. Judge Pounders said he did not have the authority to tell the media they cannot request interviews, but suggested to Velasquez that it might not be in his best interests to grant them.

Although the District Attorney's Office has not announced it is seeking the death penalty, Velasquez could receive it if found guilty because of the special circumstances of the case. A section of California Penal Code 190 allows for the death sentence if "the defendant  intentionally killed the victim while the defendant was an active participant in a criminal street gang ... and the murder was carried out to further the activities of the criminal street gang."

The irony is that while some prisoners and hard-core gang members might look up to the Avenues for causing a young deputy sheriff's death, the after-effects of murdering Escalante dealt a debilitating blow to the Avenues gang on the streets — particularly to its most infamous criminal cell, Drew Street.

The Weekly's October 2009 cover story, "The Assassination of Deputy Abel Escalante," described how a huge June 2008 police raid before the deputy's slaying badly damaged the Avenues gang and Mexican Mafia in the Cypress Park and Drew Street area. In reaction, Mexican Mafia prison thugs who control Latino-gang drug trafficking tried to rebuild their operations.

According to the U. S. Attorney's Office, using illegal cell phones and passing messages during prison visitations, the Mexican Mafia put out word from prison that they were taking back Cypress Park. Police say they chose Carlos Velasquez, who was being released from prison in a few days, to step into the shoes of the wiped-out Leon family of Drew Street.

But now, Velasquez sits in jail. More than 170 members of the Avenues, which authorities say has around 500 members, have been arrested since 2008. Many of the 170 have since been released from jail, but their power is diluted.

Homicides in LAPD's Northeast Division, which covers the Avenues territory, have plummeted 74 percent in two years. So far in 2010, the area has seen six homicides — compared with 23 for the same period in 2008. Aggravated assaults have dropped 45 percent from 509 to 278. 

Much of that, police believe, is because the Avenues gang has been driven from residential streets longing for quiet and decency.

Velasquez says he is not particularly worried about returning to prison — perhaps because he'll have a special status on the yard.  

A former Drew Street shot-caller now in federal custody explained to the Weekly what it might be like: "Once you are in state prison, they talk about why you are here," says convict Francisco Real. "I'm here for killing an enemy. And it's like I'm in here for killing a cop. So it's like people [are] like, 'Damn, he's with it. You know. He'll kill a cop.'

"In the yard — 1,000 people — you might be the only one killed a cop. It distinguishes you."

Deputy D.A> Stirling agrees with that cold reality. "The fact that he killed a police officer absolutely distinguishes Carlos Velasquez from other killers."

But on Drew Street, the shadow long cast by this menacing gang has all but vanished. The graffiti is gone, too.

"It's quiet now," says Jose Luna, an apartment manager in the area. "The neighbors are working with the police now. The LAPD is doing good."

Two blocks from where Escalante fell, at the Principe de Paz Church that Escalante's parents often attend, the pastor says the difference between now and two years ago is almost unbelievable.

"We had memorial services for 13 people, including Abel," says Pastor Andrew Catalan. His was the 13th service. "Since Abel, we have not had any. I think his death helped stop the killings."

Escalante's parents live less than 50 feet from where he died. It is still too painful for them to speak about their son. "I can't talk about him," says his father. His wife is behind him, just off to his side. She is slowly shaking her head. 

They both put their right hands over their hearts, tap three times, thank a stranger for not pushing it and walk inside their home.

http://www.laweekly.com/2010-10-21/news/deputy-abel-escalante-s-sorrowful-revenge/full/

Slain Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Abel Escalante

Abel Escalante's Sorrowful Revenge

AMAZING NO MORE

Amazing Ain't What it Used To Be

Give the word a rest so it can regain its true magnificence.

October 11, 2010

By Michael Krikorian

It's sad when you see magnificence decline into mediocrity or worse.

Muhammad Ali, unable to speak. Mickey Mantle limping back to the dugout, head down, after striking out. Brando looking like a beached Pacific walrus, mumbling away. Liz Taylor avoiding the spotlight. Renoir with hands so arthritic he could barely hold a brush. The word "amazing."

For too long now, I have been painfully aware of the failing meaning, diluted power and loss of essence of "amazing."

I have known for a few years that "amazing" was stumbling and that it was only a matter of time before irrelevancy set in, but still it hurts. Probably what irks me the most is how people don't even realize the word needs to be put on the injured reserved list or out to pasture.

Folks, I'm here to tell you officially, it's time. "Amazing" — the most misused, bastardized, overworked superlative in the American language — is no longer valid. Oh, people might still use it ad nauseam, but the significance is gone. And when a word losses its original intent, it's time for retirement.

The final, inevitable blow came last week when a friend described a doughnut to me as amazing. I am big-time into food, but doughnuts are not amazing. They can be tasty; they can be delicious. Nothing wrong with that. But a doughnut cannot stop you in your tracks in wonderment, in, in, in amazement.

"Amazing" and I go back about 47 years. We first became close in 1963 when, as a hard-core 9-year-old Marvel Comics buyer, I became fascinated with Spider-Man. If you don't know, he was known, on the cover, as "The Amazing Spider-Man."

I mean, this teenager, Peter Parker, after a spider bit him, could shoot webbing out of his wrist and cling to tall buildings and even go swinging like Tarzan from skyscraper to skyscraper! Cat could do all kinds of stuff: fight evil supervillains; rescue damsels in distress; throw a rock 'em sock 'em punch. He was, well, amazing.

But, about three years ago, I began noticing that "amazing" had become the go-to superlative. More and more, I started hearing it in inappropriate situations. It was sad because my old friend was starting to annoy me. "Amazing" turned cheap, a shell of its former self.

It started to mean good — not that there is anything wrong with good. I like good. But suddenly every thing was amazing. How was that movie? It was amazing. How was the concert? Amazing. How's the dust on top of your refrigerator? You guessed it.

Last week at a restaurant in south Hollywood that I frequent, a couple — thinking it was my first time there — used the word seven times in roughly 90 seconds to praise the food and service. If they kept up that torrid pace, allowing for eight hours of sleep, they would have said the word 1,634,200 times in 12 months. What lives of wonderment they must lead.

Two nights ago, at a Hollywood and Vine restaurant, the waiter described the Brussels sprouts as "amazing."

If everything is amazing then nothing is amazing.

"Amazing" is not the first superlative to lose its power. "Great" went long ago. But then, Alexander set the standard so high, it's demise wasn't shocking. For those of you who don't know, the word fizzled out in 1997 after announcer Al Michaels declared a four-yard run by Barry Sanders as great. I enjoyed watching Barry as much as anybody, but to me, you just about have to conquer Persia or at least the ancient port city of Tyre to be called great.

"Awesome" overdosed several years back. Everything was awesome. Remember that? The word went on life support and people backed off. It might never be the "awesome" we once knew, but it's making an ever-so-slight comeback

There's a tiny chance "amazing" can regain its former vitality. Unfortunately, it's highly unlikely, given the American love of superlatives and hyperbole. We'd all have to leave the poor thing alone. Realize what it really is. Maybe start abusing other words. "Tremendous" is still a tremendous word and not overworked. "Magnificent" is still magnificent.

"Amazing" should be deployed only for the truly special, um, spectacular. Like describing Yosemite in spring from Tunnel View. Like when Koufax pitched that perfect game against the Cubs. Like the aurora borealis. Like childbirth, (formally super-amazing). Like the 113-degree temperature last week downtown. Not like a crumb doughnut at Bob's, as much as I like crumb doughnuts on a Farmers Market morning.

I hope "amazing" gets the solitude it needs to recover. Do your part. The next time you hear it, stop the madness immediately. Explain that a once amazing word has hit the showers.

Michael Krikorian covered street gangs and the LAPD for The Times. He recently completed his first crime novel, "Southside," and a children's book, "The Sunflower Who Loved the Moon.

Amazing No More

"Just a Little Lovin" ( Early in the Morning)

March 22, 2009

LIVES

Finding That Song

By MICHAEL KRIKORIAN

Back in 1998, I was driving down Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles when I spotted a man lying on his back smack dab in the middle of the street; one leg was splayed onto the westbound lane of Pico, the other onto the eastbound. I got out of my car, and as I approached I saw he was bleeding from his lower left side. I rushed to him, and before I could say anything, he said to me, “How you doin’?”

“How am I doin’?” I asked the man. “How you doin’?”

“I just got shot.”

By then, other people were there, trying to help. Someone put a towel under his head. Someone called 911. I heard the sirens nearing. I’d seen my share of gunshot wounds, and I knew this wasn’t life-threatening, so I went on my way.

It was nearly noon, and since I was nearby, I decided to go to Langer’s Delicatessen, renowned for its pastrami sandwich. I was about to turn off my car when a song came on the radio that grabbed me. I recognized the lyrics: “Just a little lovin’, early in the morning.” I’d heard the famous Dusty Springfield version of the song, “Just a Little Lovin’,” written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, many times before and liked it. But this was not Dusty’s version. It was smoky and jazzy and extraordinarily uplifting.

So I sat and listened to the whole song, to relish it and find out who was singing. The D.J. came on and said it was Sarah Vaughan. Especially after seeing a man wounded in the street, I felt my spirits raised by the song. I went to Langer’s and had a No. 10, pastrami and Swiss with Russian dressing. Then afterward I called the radio station, but the person I talked to said he didn’t know what album it was on. Maybe a week later, I went to Tower Records on Sunset. It had several Sarah albums, but none of them had that song.

Years passed. I kind of forgot about it. But every now and then I would pass a record store and take a look. Never found it. More years went by. In 2006, I went online and found some Sarah Vaughan sites. Nothing. Amazon had hundreds of her recordings but not the one I was looking for. I posted a message on some online jazz board. I got a few responses from people saying they couldn’t find it, either. Some people made suggestions, but they didn’t pan out. And that was the last I thought about it.

Until a few weeks ago, when I found a small padded package in my mailbox. Inside was a CD with the recording of Sarah Vaughan singing “Just a Little Lovin’.” It was wrapped in a sheet of paper with some typed production info. The song is from the 1972 album “Feelin’ Good” (which, it turns out, became available online a couple of years ago). And there was a handwritten note from a man named Jerry in Amherst, Mass., that said, “Enjoy!”

I was flabbergasted. Immediately, I loaded it into the CD player in my bedroom. I was actually a little nervous. Would it sound as good as I remembered? It had been more than 10 years, and maybe I had built it up to legendary status when it was merely excellent. After all, discovery is usually a greater thrill than confirmation. I pushed play.

Oh, sweet Sarah. From the very opening notes of the piano and her first vocals, the song was just as I remembered it. I played it five times, slowly dancing around my room. I couldn’t wait to thank this guy Jerry, so I got his number from 411. “I’m glad you got it,” he said.

Then, five days after that, I got an e-mail message from someone going by EAllen4787: I hope this e-mail address is still operative for you. This address was taken from a [2006] post. I, too, have been searching for a copy of Sarah Vaughan’s version of “Just a Little Lovin’.” I used to hear it from an album that we played in graduate school at Purdue that was owned by a fellow student in 1974-1976.

I wrote back right away and told him the story — that I’d just gotten the recording in the mail out of the blue — and that I’d send him a copy. He wrote back: Thank you so much. Thank God for this Internet. This is the best find by far I have ever made on the Internet. So I had my girlfriend’s son, Oliver, burn me a CD, and I sent it out to EAllen4787.

It has been a little while now, and I still play the song every day, usually in the morning. I love the piano and Sarah’s voice. But now it’s more than just a song. It makes me think of the gift I got from a complete stranger, this Jerry guy, and how good it made me feel to reach out to someone else and ask for nothing in return. And it makes me think about that guy who was shot who asked me how I was doing. I hope he’s alive and well, and I wish I could send him the song.

Michael Krikorian has written for The Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly. He last wrote for the magazine about visiting his namesake at the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles.

Finding That Song

42 YEARS AGO, DEC. 15, 1979, RAYMOND WASHINGTON, FOUNDER OF THE CRIPS, WAS SHOT AND KILLED

This article below about Raymond Washington appeared in the L.A. Weekly back in 2005  days after Stanley "Tookie" Williams was put to death in San Quentin. A movie about his life is said to be in the works.

On The Trail Of The Real Founder Of The Crips

By Michael Krikorian , Dec 15 2005

The founder of the Crips was not lethally injected minutes after midnight Tuesday morning in the sterilized death chamber of San Quentin State Prison. There was no news of his death. There were no Oscar winners or rap stars urging that his life continue. Fifty-year-old white women in $5 million Hancock Park homes did not ponder the gang leader’s fate in his final days. No bums pushing shopping carts on Sunset and Vine had opinions on whether a governor should spare him from a state-inflicted death.

No, the founder of the Crips was gut-shot with a sawed-off on a dreary South Los Angeles corner 26 (now 42) years ago.Contrary to popular assumption, Sranley "Tookie" Williams, who was fatally injected Tuesday morning and pronounced dead at 12:35 a.m., was not the founder or even the co-founder of the Crips. The undisputed father of the notorious black street gang was one Raymond Washington, a mighty 5-foot-8 fireplug who loved to fight and loathed guns. He was killed at age 26 by a shotgun blast — allegedly by someone he knew — on the corner of 64th and San Pedro streets on August 9, 1979.

There was no mention of his death in the Los Angeles Times or any other major newspaper as there was of the death of Williams. But on the hardcore streets of South-Central Los Angeles, Watts and Compton, the slaying of Washington was akin to a presidential assassination.

“All this talk lately about Tookie, we was wondering when someone was gonna finally tell the real story about the Crips, tell the story of Raymond,” said Debra Addie Smith,  who knew the gang leader back in the early and mid-1970s.Raymond Washington was born in Texas, but grew up on 76th Street near Wadsworth Avenue, just west of Central Avenue.

“Raymond was a good kid when he was a boy,” said his mother, Violet Barton, who now lives in Phoenix. “Raymond didn’t go out of his way to fight or do anything bad, but if someone came to him, he would protect himself. And he was well-built. He tried to protect the community and keep the bad guys out. But after a while, every time I looked up, the police were coming to the house looking for Raymond.”

Others on 76th Street, a well-kept block of small single-family homes that is now more Latino than African-American, said that while Raymond protected the boys and girls from bullies from other neighborhoods, he bullied them himself.

“I don’t have a whole lot of good to say about Raymond,” said Lorrie Griffin Moss, 48, with a laugh. She grew up directly across the street from Washington on 76th Street, just west of Wadsworth. “Raymond was a bully. A muscular bully. He wouldn’t let anybody from outside our neighborhood bother us. He would bother us. Raymond could be very mean.”

Washington was known as a great street fighter.“Raymond could really toss ’em,” said Los Angeles Police Department Detective Wayne Caffey, referring to Washington’s fist skills as a street fighter. Caffey’s cousin attended Fremont High School, where Washington was occasionally schooled when he wasn’t kicked out for fighting. “He was an awesome football player, but he didn’t want to play organized ball. He wanted to be a knucklehead.”

Raymond, Caffey said, deplored guns and considered those who brought guns to a fight to be punks.

Washington — who had three older brothers — was a street legend, especially to his one younger brother.

“He was real, real good with his hands. He could bring it from the shoulders. Like Mike Tyson  in his prime,” said Derard Barton, 46, who added that his brother had 18-inch arms and a 50-inch chest. “He weighed abut 215. All muscle. I never saw my brother lose a fight, except to my older brothers when he was real young. But when he got older, he could even take them.”

Even youths miles away from Washington’s 76th Street neighborhood remember him.“I remember that Raymond Washington was a hog,” said Ronald “Kartoon” Antwine, a community activist from Watts who remembers seeing the Crips founder at the Watts Summer Festival. “By hog, I mean Raymond would take his shirt off and fight his ass off all day long.”

Washington was kicked out of every school he ever attended for fighting. He would go away to juvenile detention camps and be sure to let everyone know when he was back in the neighborhood, said Griffin Moss.“He’d go away for a few months, and when he came back, he come up to my dad and mom and say, “Hey, Mr. Griffin, I’m back. Hello, Mrs. Griffin. I’m back.”

His younger brother remembers Raymond fondly and proudly.“He was like a Robin Hood type a person, stealing from the rich, giving to the poor,” said Derard Barton from his home in Phoenix. 

Washington admired the Black Panthers and tried for a while to emulate them as a youth. He eventually joined the local gang called the Avenues led by a youth named Craig Munson. He later left the Avenues after “he kicked Craig Munson’s brother’s ass,” according to Detective Caffey.He started his own gang.

The origin of the name Crips has many tales, has become folklore. Some, including Tookie, have said the name came from Raymond’s gang the Baby Avenues, which became the Avenue Cribs. In a drunken state, Cribs mispronounced their name into Crips.

However, Washington’s brother and Griffin Moss say the name simply came from an injury that one of Raymond’s older brothers incurred.“My older brother Reggie was kind of bowlegged, and then he twisted his ankle bad one time, and he was walking with a limp, so he put “Crip” on his Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars and Raymond took the name,” said younger brother Derard.

As for Raymond’s nickname, he was sometimes referred to as Ray Ray — as many Rays are for some reason — but mainly he was just called Raymond.“Raymond didn’t need a nickname,” said Derard Barton.

Barton said being the younger brother of the founder of the Crips had some benefits.“Sometimes I would get into fights, but once people knew I was Raymond Washington’s brother, they were the nicest people in the world to me,” said Barton, who works at a hospital for disabled people as a behavioral health technician. “Plus, no one ever broke into our house. He was really a goodhearted person. He was really kind to elderly people. He liked to fight, yeah, but if he liked you, he’d treat you so well. If he didn’t like you, he would hate you.”

Raymond had a simple and very effective tactic of expanding the Crips.“He would go to the leader of another gang and fight him,” said Derard Barton. “He went straight to their main man. Once he put the guy on his back, everyone else would join up and follow him.”

Said Detective Caffey: “He went to other neighborhoods and said, ‘Either join me or become my enemy.’  

Most kids living on the edge of thuggery joined. Some did not. Those that were fighters, who were not intimidated, kept to their own gangs.

Eventually, the pressure of the Crips became so intense, so bloody, that the other gangs — the Piru in Compton and the Brims near USC — aligned themselves into a loosely knit gang group called the Bloods. The Swans and Bounty Hunters also signed on with the Bloods alliance. And the bloody battle of South Los Angeles, Watts and Compton was on.

Although inspired by the Black Panthers, Washington and his group never were able to develop an agenda for social change within the community. Early big-shot members included Mack Thomas of the original Compton Crips, Michael “Shaft” Concepcion, Jimel “Godfather” Barnes, Greg “Batman” Davis and Stanley Tookie Williams.

Williams, of course, gained international infamy as his death sentence gained unprecedented publicity. Legend has it that Washington approached Williams to expand his gang to the west side of the Harbor Freeway and Williams became a leader of the Westside Crips.

“It’s just wrong to say Tookie was the founder of the Crips,” said Wes McBride, president of the California Gang Investigators Association.

Moss also remembers Tookie Williams coming by all the time to visit Raymond. “He’d be walking down the street looking like the Pirelli man,” she said. Still, though Williams was killed by the state Tuesday morning and referred to himself as the co-founder of the Crips, many say Raymond Washington is being forgotten.

Many young wannabes calling themselves Crips these days don't even know who Raymond Washington was. It would be like a young Dodger prospect not knowing who was Sandy Koufax.

Back in the 1970s, as the Crips became more deadly and infamous for robbing youths of their black leather jackets and drive-by shootings, Raymond started to become disillusioned with the gang he founded.

“He started running with a black motorcycle goup,” said retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s gang investigator Curtis Jackson. “I think he felt that the youngsters were getting too crazy, getting totally out of control.“My interaction with Raymond was minimal, but he was very approachable,” said Jackson. “I had no trouble talking with him. Most gang members are actually very personable, and I’ve never had any trouble rapping with them. Tookie was an exception, as he always had a few thugs around him, so he always had an attitude.”

On the bleak corner of 64th Street and San Pedro is a drab pink, two-story apartment building — 6326 S. San Pedro St. — complete with runaway weeds, peeling paint, three rusty barbecues and a large cart labeled Rick’s Hot Dogs, all nestled against a ratty chain-link fence.

It was here on an August night in 1979 that Raymond Washington was blown away by a blast from a sawed-off shotgun. Someone inside a car had called out his name, and Washington walked over. The pellets tore into his guts, and he was rushed away to a hospital, where he died.

It was the end of the founder of the Crips, and it was the beginning of the end of the Crips as a united gang.

Though no one was ever arrested, rumors spread — erroneously — that the Hoover Crips (now Hoover Criminals) were responsible. Shootings broke out between Raymond’s Eastside Crips — now known as the East Coast Crips — and the Hoovers.

Right around then, feud broke out between the Rollin’ 60s Crips and the Eight Trey Gangster Crips, and shootings erupted between those large and extremely violent Crips factions. Other Crip sets chose sides, and Crips have been killing Crips ever since then. More even than Crips kill Bloods or Bloods kill Crips.

As much as he relished a good fistfight, Raymond would be sad and disappointed to see what havoc was wreaked on the gang he founded. Rare is the time when two guys meet in an alley or park anymore and “toss ’em.” The days of bringing it from the shoulders were coming to an end, and the days of bringing it from the holster were the way it would be.

The Bad Ass Peacemakers of Nickerson Gardens

Tending the Gardens

)By Michael Krikorian 

On a recent evening outside the gym at Nickerson Gardens in Watts, a boom box fills the air with the sounds of a jazz flutist. Big Hank Henderson walks over to his GMC Yukon with the shiny 24-inch rims and pulls out one of his jazz compilations. He tells the boom-box man to put on the Les McCann–and–Eddie Harris cut “The Generation Gap.” It’s a fitting jam.

For two decades, Big Hank Henderson, 49, and his ace partner Big Donny Joubert, 46, both raised in the projects, have been reaching out to a younger generation of youth and young men in Watts, urging them to avoid gang violence, stay in school and pursue their dreams. Naturally, in this rough neighborhood, they have been through many heartbreaking disappointments and countless funerals, but without these two powerful men, the situation would be far worse.

“We all about Watts, period. Not just Nickerson Gardens, but all of Watts,” says Joubert, sitting on a folding chair in front of the gym’s entrance. “All these guys and girls deserve to graduate and be all they can be. Gang violence is a disease.”

“To me, Donny and Hank are community heroes,” says Sheldon Cruz, policy administrator for Los Angeles’ Human Relations Committee. “They do all this work to help the community and they do it for free on their own time.”

Cruz recalls how back in 2003, when he came to Nickerson Gardens, the relationship between the project and the LAPD was very low. “Hank and Donny helped rebuild a rapport with the LAPD,” Cruz says.

In March, the LAPD’s Southeast Division, which patrols Watts, played a basketball game in the Nickerson Gardens gym against a team from the projects. Ten years ago, that would have been unheard of.

“I can vouch for Hank and Donny that they are doing a great job,” says the LAPD’s Jerome Walker, of Southeast Division.

Congresswoman Janice Hahn, whose was the councilwoman for L.A.'s 15 District includes Watts, often dealt with the peacemakers.

“They can calm things down because they have the respect of everybody in the neighborhood,” says Hahn. “Hank and Donny are making a big difference.”

“If more urban neighborhoods had individuals like Donny and Hank, who selflessly work toward providing a better place for young people to grow up and achieve their goals,” says Gregory Thomas, a community interventionist who is also devoted to ending the violence, “then Los Angeles would be a better place for all of us to live in.”

Henderson and Joubert come to their maintenance-department jobs at the projects at 7:30 a.m. and get off at 4:30 p.m. Then, after working out on a bench press and a speed bag, they hang out around the gym, offering advice, refereeing games, breaking up an occasional fight and just making sure things are calm. They usually leave around 9:30 p.m. But that doesn’t mean their day is done.

“It never ends,” says Henderson, a man of few words who normally stays out of the spotlight. “We can be home at 1, 2, 3 in the morning and get a phone call that there’s some trouble, and we are right back here.”

Both Henderson and Joubert are quick to point out that they are not alone in their quest to keep the peace. There are many others involved. One of them is Dameian Hartfield.

“To put it simply,” Hartfield says, “they do way more than the average person to help the community in a positive way.”

For all the nice words that everyone says about them, what the two could really use is some help.

“We can’t do this alone. This is a huge problem,” Joubert says. “Get us some computer programs. Some afterschool programs. When you have nothing to fall back on, what are you gonna do? You are going to get in trouble.”

When Henderson’s jazz CD plays out, the boom-box man walks it back to him. Henderson tells Boom Box to put the CD back in his Yukon.

“But keep your hands where I can see them,” Henderson says, smiling just a bit.

On his way back, Boom Box says, “When I get my Caddy, I ain’t even gonna let you sit in the front seat.”

Joubert chimes in, “That’s okay. Hank rather be in the back seat anyway.”

Big Donny up front, Big Hank scooping 

MICHAEL KRIKORIAN, JR.

NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE,  "LIVES"

November 25, 2007

The Namesake

By MICHAEL KRIKORIAN

Back in 1985, while working at Hughes Aircraft in Long Beach, Calif., I met a fine young woman named Addie. She worked in a different department, but whenever I saw her, I’d flirt with her. Eventually she became my girlfriend. I was a fixture at her mother’s house in the Fruit Town ’hood where Addie lived with her two sons. It was known as Fruit Town because of the names of the streets — Cherry, Peach, Pear — and it was one of the roughest neighborhoods in Compton, home of the Fruit Town Piru gang, one of the original gangs in the confederation known as the Bloods.

It was during this time that the crack epidemic was at its inglorious height. There were dealers up and down Cherry Street, a narrow lane of tattered two-bedroom homes. My girlfriend became hooked on crack. Some nights she wouldn’t come home. But I stayed with her and tried in vain to get her to stop. When you love someone who is on crack, you can’t help trying to get them to quit.

Like the fool I was, I continued to have unprotected sex with her. She became pregnant. I wondered if I was the father. Addie swore tearfully I was. When the baby was born, he didn’t really look like me, but he did have a bit of a hooked nose like mine. I put my trust in that nose.

Addie named the boy Michael Krikorian Jr. For the first two years of his life, I bought almost every sip of Similac, slurp of food and batch of diapers. Finally one day, Addie’s sister Kathy called me an idiot and told me he wasn’t my kid. Something I knew deep down. Eventually Addie admitted it to me. Still, the kid didn’t have a real father, so I continued to help out. (The biological father was a dealer up the street. He died eight years ago from a heart attack.)

Even after Addie and I split, I would still drop in on Li’l Mike. When he saw me walk in the door, he’d get this really big smile on his face, rush over and punch me in the leg. But eventually the visits faded, and the last time I saw Mike he was maybe 6 or 7 years old. Then last summer, Addie called. I hadn’t spoken to her in years. Michael, now 19, had been arrested and charged with a gang-related murder.

One morning a few weeks later, I went over to the notorious Men’s Central Jail, where half a dozen inmates have been killed in the last few years. I got in the dreaded line of visitors who wait outside to see loved ones. You really do have to love the person who’s incarcerated to get in that damn line. It felt as long as a football field.

Michael Jr., I learned from Addie, had joined the Neighborhood Compton Crips. As I waited in line, I wondered where Li’l Mike would be today if I really were his father and had raised him. And I wondered where I would be if it hadn’t been for my own father. Maybe I’d be there, too. I got into trouble twice as an adult, and both times my dad came to my rescue.

After about 90 minutes outside, I was let into the jail’s waiting room — a depressing place with flies and swarms of little kids running around. Finally, after another hour and a half, a deputy called out Michael’s name.

I went to Row F, Seat 14, and there he was, waiting on the other side of a pitted glass partition. He looked good — lean and muscular, like a cornerback or a wide receiver. Li’l Mike is now 6-foot-2, 205 pounds.

He looked at me as if to say: “Why you sitting here? You must have the wrong seat.” I just sat there looking at him. Slowly, the past came back: a lopsided grin, then a smile, then the big smile I remember. That recognition was sweet. It took a minute for the phones to work, so we just kept staring at each other. Then the phones came on.

“Do you know my name?” I asked him.

He just started laughing. “Yeah,” he said. “You got a cool name.”

We talked about his life — his brothers, his schooling, his plans if the case goes his way. He asked me to send him a certain book, but it had to be a paperback. I said I would. I told him I was sorry I didn’t have any cash that day to leave for him. “That’s all right,” he said with a warm, sincere smile. “The visit is greatly appreciated.” I said something stupid like, “Hang in there,” and then put my left fist up to the glass. His fist met mine.

As I walked outside into the fresh air, I thought about him sleeping in that jail. I prayed he wouldn’t be found guilty, though the trial wouldn’t be for months. I figured I’d go back and visit him again. Damn that damn line.

MY TURKISH FRIEND

Across the Armenian-Turkish divide

Op-Ed

For years, the genocide fueled my anger at all things Turkish. Then I met Murat Kayali.

April 23, 2013|By Michael Krikorian

In 2001, I wrote a story for the Los Angeles Times about April 24, the annual Armenian Day of Remembrance, that had this lead: "The Armenian genocide."

That was it, the entire first paragraph.

I was proud of it because it didn't say "the alleged genocide" or "what the Armenians consider a genocide." It just called the 1915 massacre of a million Armenians what it was, even though the U.S. government — in deference to official Turkish denials and our air bases in Turkey — won't use the word.

When I was a teenager, I used to go with my grandfather Nahabed to April 24 protest marches on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and later on Wilshire Boulevard. I've been to maybe 25. I'll probably go again this week.

I heard the tales of horror from both pairs of grandparents, Nahabed and Siranoush, from the city of Kharpert, and Moses and Siran, from a village near Van. Siranoush saw her pregnant sister bayoneted, the fetus coming back out on the blade. For my other grandmother, Siran, there was never enough distance to completely wipe away what happened. It all enraged me, eliciting a young man's desire for revenge.

When 19-year-old Hampig "Harry" Sassounian shot and killed the Turkish counsel general at a stoplight on Wilshire Boulevard and Comstock in Westwood in 1982, I mostly admired him. What a bold thing to do, I thought then, to kill this Turkish official who denied the ultimate crime.

In those years, whenever I saw or heard about anything Turkish, I hated it. Even Turkish Taffy. I'm not joking. On Redondo Beach Boulevard near Prairie Avenue there was a bar called Turk's Grass Hut. I doubt the owner was even a Turk, but every time I drove by at night, I considered shooting out the sign with my .38.

When I met Turks, which happened a few times, I immediately said I was Armenian. It's an example of my vast ignorance that I was always surprised when they didn't recoil in hatred.

One of them said he had been engaged to an Armenian girl, but her parents wouldn't allow the marriage. Big deal, I thought. Why would anyone want to marry a Turk anyway?

I knew, of course, that all Turks weren't bad. My Uncle Harry and Uncle Aram told me that many had helped Armenians in their darkest hour. But the rest of them had killed my ancestors, or stood by and then denied the atrocities.

Years passed. My anger eased. And I met Murat Kayali.

He was a delivery driver for the restaurant my girlfriend owns. When I saw this new guy lingering in the parking lot, I introduced myself. As I do with just about everyone I meet, I challenged him with a "Where you from?" (I've probably been hanging out in Watts too long.)

"Turkey," he said.

I said, "I'm Armenian."

And his face lit up.

He told me of the many Armenian friends he had back home in Ankara and how much he loved the Armenian people. He had this engaging smile and a contagious exuberance. We talked for a while.

I walked into the restaurant thinking, "Hmm, I liked that guy. I like that Turk."

Every time I saw him, he greeted me with "Michael, eench bes es?" — the phonetic version of "How are you?" in Armenian. I started to seek him out.

Turned out he had a UCLA engineering degree and was working at the restaurant to put away some money. His goal was a good job in his homeland. He invited me to his wedding at home in Ankara, promising me I would be treated like family.

How could I not like him? How could anyone not like this guy, even someone like me?

On the afternoon of the Oscars last year, the to-go orders were piling up at the restaurant. I went into the kitchen to help. Organize the time sequence of the orders for the delivery drivers, I was told. Soon, Murat joined me, sorting the tickets.

"Check it out," I said loudly to the staff. "An Armenian and a Turk working side by side."

"And having fun," Murat said. "Someone take a picture."

We laughed and gave each other a hard sideways five. Pop. The sting felt good.

Murat finally moved back to Turkey. Two weeks ago, he Facebooked me. He had his dream job as an engineer in Ankara. His marriage was a delight. He was happy. I was happy for him. He wrote, "You are one of my best friends in USA." He told me to come visit. Again.

Imagine that. Me going to Ankara to see a Turkish friend. Maybe I will. Maybe there's hope for the planet after all.

Michael Krikorian, a former Times staff writer, is the author of a crime novel, "Southside," due to be published in November.

http://articles.latimes.com/print/2013/apr/23/opinion/la-oe-krikorian-armenians-genocide-20130423

Murat and Michael in Istanbul

LA Times Magazine - "War of the Roses"

Technically, He Shouldn't Have Been Harvesting the Blossoms in His Ex-Girlfriend's Garden. But Their Nurturing Had Been a Labor of Love.

June 14, 1998|MICHAEL KRIKORIAN | Michael Krikorian, who covered South-Central Los Angeles and Watts for The Times, is now a writer based in Fresno

I committed a burglary recently.

On a spring midnight, I parked my Ford pickup truck on a quiet street in Garden Grove and surveyed the neighborhood. Heart pounding, I grabbed my burglary tool and walked toward the front door of the house on Richmond Avenue.

I'll admit I wasn't the coolest thief in town--certainly not a Cary Grant. After all, I hadn't burgled in the nearly 30 years since my cousins Dave, Jeff and Richard and I broke into Uncle Popkin's house in Eagle Rock to steal shish kebab. Neighbors called the police and soon a cop chopper whirled above the hilly neighborhood searching for us--successfully. The cops let us go. Our parents weren't so kind.

But failure be damned; at age 43 I was compelled to strike again.

Just as I neared the treasures, the security lights of the beige-and-blue four-bedroom house blew my cover. No greater spotlight ever shone on any performer on Broadway or any convict scaling the wall at Folsom. I felt the eyes of the world--or at least Orange County--upon me. How could I have been so careless to forget the security lights? I had installed them myself five years ago for my former girlfriend, Carol.

But I had crossed the Rubicon. I took the tool of choice, a Swiss-made Felco hand pruner, and went to work.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Better go. Don't push it. The cops could be on their way--and how would I explain this midnight foray on a home that Carol has rented to strangers for the past two years? I quicklyran/walked back to the truck and escaped into the night.

Two blocks away, I turned on the interior light and admired my loot. Tiffany. Paradise. Double Delight. Three breathtakingly beautiful roses.

I don't know what the courts would have ruled had I been caught. But perhaps they might have been sympathetic; I had planted these roses.

From 1989 to 1994, roses, along with dining at the world's best French restaurants, were Carol's and my No. 1 hobby. And while dinner at the Girardet restaurant in Crissier, Switzerland, and Joel Robuchon in Paris set me back a sumptuous grand, one good rosebush cost a sawbuck and, with proper care, will outlive me.

I planted 33 roses at Carol's house. At my Dad's home in Gardena, where I usually was when I wasn't at Carol's, I planted 28.

We joined the American Rose Society. We entered the Pasadena Rose Show in 1993, winning three second-place red ribbons (for Paradise, Brandy and Color Magic).

Then, after nearly six years together, Carol and I broke up. There was no court settlement. She would get custody of the roses. I would get nothing. Not even visitation rights.

Until recently, I lived in Los Feliz Village, where I had rented a small bungalow with a yard--actually a flower bed. Well, it was more like a flower cot. I had one rose in the ground, First Prize, a two-toned pink rose with little fragrance but blooms as big as dinner plates.

In a round wooden container, I raised a vermilion hybrid tea called Granada. I positioned the pot near the entrance to my place. When someone asked me about my dwelling, I sometimes said, "I can look out my front door and see Granada."

Most people are surprised when I tell them I'm into roses in such a big way. They think I'm kidding when I say I'm a member of the American Rose Society. I have to pull out my tattered card to prove it. (It's the only society I've ever belonged to.)

But I guess I can see their point. I don't come off as the typical rosarian.

I've been a street reporter covering South-Central and Watts. I've gone to housing projects late at night and sipped Olde English 800 with the homeboys. I know guys named Big Evil, Mad Dog and Snipe. I wear a lot of dark clothing. I have a couple of scars on my forehead from disastrous street battles in the '70s.

I may act like a tough guy sometimes, but if someone showed me a Double Delight in the middle of a street fight, I might stop and stare for a few seconds. God forbid any of the fellas should read this.

My mother was named Rose, and two years after she died, I started buying them. Her name helped, but I just happen to like the look of a good garden rose. I like the variety, the different names. I like working in the garden and feeding them, and I like putting the cut flowers in an old Chateau Cheval Blanc bottle, knowing I drank the wine and grew the roses.

I keep my pruners in the car, but not for purposes of theft. I have been known, while waiting for someone--anyone--to wander into a stranger's yard and prune a rosebush that hasn't been cared for since D-day. I've knocked on doors and explained the situation: "Excuse me, I'm just waiting for a friend, and I saw your rosebush could use a little pruning. Would you mind if I clipped it a bit? No charge."

Some people look at me as if I'm a serial killer. Others emerge to discuss their garden; some are ashamed and promise to take better care of their Mister Lincoln (a classic red with fragrance) or Pristine (a delicate off-white tinged with pink, sporting a high center).

The single most stunning rose I've ever grown was a Chicago Peace. I cut the flower, a more deeply colored relative of the world-famous Peace, and gave it to my sister, Jeanine. I must have looked at that rose 70 times and every time I did it made me feel almost spiritual.

I felt the same way as I drove away from Carol's house, gazing at Double Delight, a creamy white flower whose petals are thickly bordered in a brilliant red and whose fragrance is as dreamy as a bouquet of sweet peas. I don't understand guys who try to impress dolls with a dozen red roses from a florist. One Double Delight will do the trick--if the trick can be done.

Technically, I suppose, my raid at Carol's house was a burglary. But, now that I think about it, I'd have to say it was a different kind of crime. In a burglary, you take objects, not living things. No, this was more like a kidnapping.

NY Times Magazine "Lives" - Night of 130 Teenagers

LIVES
By MICHAEL KRIKORIAN

Published: July 9, 2010

My girlfriend Nancy’s 16 year-old son wanted to give a party at her home in Hancock Park, an old, upscale neighborhood in Los Angeles. He said there were going to be about 70 kids attending, almost all of them from his private high school, where the tuition runs more than $20,000 a year. Not exactly my alma mater, Gardena High, if you read me.

After going back and forth, my girlfriend somewhat reluctantly agreed. Her son, Oliver, had been to so many parties at other classmates’ houses, and he’d never asked to have a party at his mother’s house before. Nancy was worried that there would be drinking. Oliver said that some people would try to sneak in alcohol, or might drink before coming in, but that there would be designated drivers and also taxicabs if needed. He also said it wouldn’t get going until about 9:30.

Come party day, a few weeks ago, Nancy went to work at the restaurant she owns. I think she also didn’t want to be at the house during the party. This move left me — someone who was twice convicted of assault for fighting when I was younger — as the only adult at the party.

That afternoon, after loading in a gross of big submarine sandwiches and chips for the kids, I came home and turned on the TV. I watched a World Cup preview piece onDiego Maradona, the great Argentine soccer player. I saw a clip of Frank Sinatra’s return concert in which he sings “Nice ’n’ Easy” while Gene Kelly dances so gracefully around him. And I watched “The Rock,” in which Sean Connery plays a retired British SAS Commando. I didn’t imagine that I might have to be a combination of all these guys to keep everything in order that night.

By 9:30 p.m. there were seven people at the party. By 10 p.m., there were 60. By 11, largely thanks to Facebook, the crowd had swelled to at least 130 teenagers. All in the backyard. One rule Nancy laid down: no one was allowed anywhere in the house except the bathroom at a rear side entrance near the backyard.

I didn’t want to play the warden, so I stayed inside most of the time, making occasional walks through the party. I greeted newcomers by saying: “Welcome to the house. Have a good time. Respect the house. Respect me.” I know how to act tough, and for the most part everyone was well behaved.

On two of my walk-throughs, I saw boys bringing in 12-packs of beer. I told them nicely that they would have to take the beer back to their car. And they did, without hesitation. I smelled pot, but with so many kids I just didn’t think there was much I could do about it.

I went back inside. A friend’s daughter, Ida, who is 16 but doesn’t go to Oliver’s school, came inside with me. A bit later my friend Chris came over, and we all watched TV. “Dirty Harry” was on.

A little after midnight, I made another walk-through. Near the outdoor fireplace I saw a young girl who seemed very woozy. Right as I got to her, she started slumping over, her head dangling toward the concrete floor. Maradona! I thought as I stuck my foot out to guide her head softly to the ground. The Argentine had just saved a girl from a bloody head, or worse.

I helped the girl, who was 15, into the house and laid her out on the front-room couch. Her boyfriend was very apologetic, but I ignored him. I was busy checking the girl’s pulse. I considered calling 911, but her pulse was there. I asked her what two plus two was, and with her head in a closely positioned kitchen trash can, she slowly showed me four fingers. Apparently she came to the party with a Fiji water bottle filled with vodka. The boyfriend called his mother, who got on the phone with me. She arrived 15 minutes later, and the two of them had trouble getting the girl off the couch. That’s when I went into Sean Connery mode: I slung her over my shoulder and began walking her out.

As I reached the door, my friend Chris yelled out, “Be careful on the stairs.” The last thing I needed was to trip down the front steps. Gene Kelly: I thought of his moves in that clip with Frank as I stepped, almost danced, down those eight stairs, and put her in the car. (I checked on her the next day. After sleeping it off until late in the afternoon, the girl was O.K.)

Meanwhile, the party in the back didn’t skip a beat. No one even noticed what happened with the girl. But it wasn’t long before I started telling people it was time to go, polite-Dirty-Harry style. And they did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/magazine/11lives-t.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/magazine/11lives-t.html?_r=0