The Death of "The Quiet Man", Another Killing in Palms Has The Neighborhood Rattled

Christopher John Paul not only didn't bother anyone, he  hardly ever spoke to anyone.  He rarely even looked at anyone, quietly going about his routine of walking to the 7-Eleven on Overland and Palms then returning to the apartment complex two blocks away where he lived alone. But, residents of this Palms neighborhood knew "the quiet man" and they are dumbfounded why someone would shoot the 33-year-old to death as he stood in a carport off an alley Wednesday afternoon.

"Who would want to kill the quiet man?" said Ismile Nuru, the manager of the 7-Eleven who clutched his heart when he spoke of Paul.  "I never knew his name, but he would come here two, three times a day. Get coffee, orange juice. He never talked and if there was a line, he would stand off to the side and wait for the line to go away.  it's terrible they would kill him."

Police were also baffled by the killing of Paul who was shot at approximately 2:30 p.m.,in the alley just north of  Woodbine Street, two blocks away from Woodbine Park where there was another killing last week.. 

"This guy was a true victim," said Det. Thomas Small of LAPD's West Bureau Homicide. "He didn't do anything to remotely provoke this."

A blue truck was observed leaving the area immediately after the shooting.

Paul's family in Michigan were "completely devastated" by the news of his shooting death. Paul had come to California about seven years ago seeking employment. In his apartment unit on the 3300 block of Mentone Avenue a job application indicated he was available for work Monday to Saturday.

"That's because he didn't want to work on Sundays he went to church," said Small. "The people he wetn to church with said he was a very nice and very quiet man."

The shooting death of Paul was particularly worrisome for Palms residents because last week a series of gang-related shootings left Justin Aquilar, 27, dead and four others wounded. James Pickens, 35, was arrested last Friday in connection with the shootings.

Since 2010 - not counting the two in the last week - there have been three homicides in Palms, according to the L.A. Times Homicide Report. 

"I've been around here since 1968 and it's never been like this around here," said Matthew Domeno, owner of the 7-Eleven franchise on Overland. "This place right here is like a small town corner store."

Not anymore.. 

Anyone with information about either killing is urged to contact West Bureau Homicide detectives Carranza or Small at (210 382-9470

Man Shot to Death Monday Evening on 84th Street and St. Andrews Place

A young black man walking along 84th Street near St. Andrews Place died early Monday evening after he was shot several times by an assailant firing from a passing car.

The man, whose identity was not immediately known, was carrying a bag of snacks and was walking westbound around 7 p.m. on 84th when the car drove along side. The shooter did not get out of the car, authorities said, and the victim collapsed on the street.  

"Someone is waiting for their baby to come home and he ain't coming home," said a woman standing outside the crime scene tape and looking at the familiar white "murder tent" the LAPD had set up to keep the body out of view.  "Where's the protest for him? I mean, I know it just happened, but, I'm telling you,  no one is going to be protesting for this kid."

The neighborhood has for decades been a stronghold of the Eigth Trey Gangster Crips.

Saturday Morning Killing on 82nd, Saturday Evening Killing on 88th

LAPD homicide detectives were busy Saturday investigating the deaths of two adult black males, ages 26 and 24, shot to death in separate incidents on the Southside..

Early Saturday evening, Maurice Reliford was fatally shot and three companions wounded near 88th Street and Figueroa in Vermont Vista when an assailant opened fire on the group.

Shortly after the shooting, friends and relatives gathered outside the crime scene tape near the Full Moon Motel. Reliford's father walked among the crowd telling everyone "God bless you."

Reliord's aunt said she ran to the shooting site and saw her nephew laid out.

"I kept saying 'Maurice! Maurice!', but he wouldn't wake up, " said Judy Ann Reliford, adding emphatically that her nephew was not a gang member. 

Reliford's cousin, Brandia Cook, stood by in a dazed state before she spoke. 

"If you needed something to eat,  Maurice would get you something to eat," said Cook, who spoke to Reliford five hours before he was shot. She said he was from Victorville, had moved to Los Angeles two years ago and was the father of two young children. . "You hear this all the time, but he was just a really nice guy who kept to himself and mainly hung out with his cousins. He loved hip hop. Especially E-40 and Nipsey Hussle.  He was a great cousin. "

Saturday morning detectives were at 82nd Street just east of Vermont Avenue in Vermont Knolls where the 24-year-old, an reputed Avalon Crip gang member with a lengthy criminal record, lay dead. He may have been shot as early as Friday before midnight, but the body was not discovered until 6 a.m., authorities. A U.S. Post Office is 20 feet away from where the victim died and detectives are hoping the surveillance cameras there will provide valuable information.

Outside the crime scene tape and the 'murder tent" where the victim's body lay hidden from view and covered with a sheet, the man's mother wailed. "Not my son!. Oh, my god, not my son1"

Maurice Reliford with one of his two boys. 

56-Year-Old Man Out Walking His Dog Is Shot To Death On 42nd Street and 7th Avenue

Every evening Larise Smith would  take his Lacasapoo dog Toby out for a five-block walk from his home on 3rd Avenue near 42nd Street where he lived for 50 years. Monday on that walk, the 56-year-old man, security guard at a Beverly Hills private school, stopped  to chat with a couple of ladies near 7th Avenue when a man approached him and asked a variant of that deadly question "Where you from?' .

A witness said the man actually said "What set are you from?", then produced a handgun and shot Smith in the head.  The shooter fled on foot south on 7th Avenue. 

Los Angeles Fire Department Rescue Ambulance 34 responded and transported Smith to California Hospital Medical Center where he  succumbed to his injuries.

At the shooting site Tuesday morning, stunned friends and relatives placed candles around a tree where Smith was shot. Among the loved ones was Larise's nephew, Anthony Smith.

"My uncle was a good, quiet guy who never bothered anyone and loved his dogs and his garden," said Smith, adding that his uncle had one daughter who lives in Georgia. 

Larise Smith, who turned 56 two weeks ago, took care of his father who passed away in March. 

Anyone with information on the killing can call LAPD Criminal Gang Homicide Division at (213) 485-4341

The Hollywood Leather Jacket Murder

PART I  -  "The Night the Crips Became Infamous"

In the week before  March 20, 1972, all you had to say on the Southside of Los Angeles was “You going?” and people would know what you were talking about. It seemed as if everyone would be "going", going to the Hollywood Palladium.  “Soul Train”, the popular Chicago-based dance show, was hosting its first Hollywood event. The buzz humming - through Watts, South Central, Compton Inglewood, Gardena - was electrified. I didn't go to the show, but, as a senior at Gardena High, I remember the excitement.

On that spring night in 1972, the Palladium’s marquee heralded Curtis Mayfield and Wilson Pickett and the promise of unrestrained soulful joy. This evening would be a groovin’, mass sing-a-long to Mayfield’s “Gypsy Woman”, “It’s All Right” and “Super Fly”. A night of hearing Pickett pound out “In the Midnight Hour”, “Land of 1,000 Dances” and “Don’t Knock My Love.” 

This was to be a concert to remembered.  And it still is. But, not for the music. 

##

The show lived up to the buildup. It was a smashing success. But, the aftermath turned out to be a tragedy of monumental proportions that still reverberates 42 years later.  

Shortly after the concert ended, on Sunset Boulevard, east of Vine Street, James “Cuzz” Cunningham saw a boy with the long black leather jacket. He told his crime partner, Judson Bacot, “I want that coat.”

The words sent a charge through Judson. He knew what was coming. He was ready. He put his hand on his Smith and Wesson .22.

The coveted leather jacket was known as a maxi coat, the type that goes nearly to the ankles, something Shaft would wear. Cuzz and Judson crossed to the south side of Sunset and zeroed in on 16-year-old concert-goer Charles Alexander Foster, whose two friends were walking slightly ahead of him. One of them was Robert Ballou, Jr.. 

In front of Mark C. Bloome Tires, Cuzz called out from about 20 feet away. “Hey dude, hey dude.”

 “Me?” said Foster.

 “Yeah. What’s up, man? I like that coat.”

 “I do too,” Foster said.

 By then, Bacot, 22, and Cunningham, 19, were on him..

 “Take it off. I want it,” said Cuzz.

Judson pulled his revolver and growled menacingly , “This is a robbery. Don’t make it a homicide.” 

Judson Bacot did not fire his gun.

The coroner’s office would summarize the death of Robert Ballou, Jr . as “Beating – Fists & Feet”

 ##

It was after midnight when the grandma entered the interview room at Hollywood Homicide, six blocks from the Palladium.  Inside waiting was her 16-year-old grandson and LAPD Detective Al Gastaldo. She told her kin "Tell him what you know."

The boy hesitated, shrugged his shoulders, tilted his head. Grandma knew he knew something. Tell him, she demanded. He said nothing. She moved in close and,without warning, slapped him hard. Then slapped him back handed. Then forehanded. All the while yelling at him in front of the stunned detective. "Tell him! Tell him what you saw!" Smack! "Tell him was happened." Smack!

Finally he did. "It was the Crips."

The Crips? What the hell is the Crips?, thought Gastaldo. He had never heard the word before. Most people in Los Angeles hadn't either. But soon, after the sun rose and the glaring headlines of the Herald Examiner and the Los Angeles Times hit the corners, the Crips, the black street gang now known the world over, were on the fast lane to infamy.

"After his grandma smacked him around and he said the Crips did it, that was the first time I had ever heard of them," recalled Gastaldo as he sipped a ice tea at a San Fernando Valley Marie Calendar's. "After the juvenile said that, everything fell into place. By the next day, we had all the suspects in custody. But, if it wasn't for that grandma, I don't know if we would have solved that killing.”

The killing was shocking. It was brutality in a tourist location. It featured an ominous gang of suspects that brought fear to the entire city. There might be gang killings in Watts and Compton, but in in the heart of Hollywood?  Was anywhere safe now? 

It became known as the Hollywood Leather Jacket Murder, the stomping of Robert Ballou, Jr. at the Palladium on Sunset near Vine.

As it turned out, It would be the paramount killing that spawned the deadliest gang war in the history of the United States - The battle of the Crips and the Bloods.  It is the sixth deadliest war in United States history after the Civil War, World War II, World War I, Vietnam and Korea wars.

In the way that the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria sparked World War I, the  war between the Crips and Bloods was ignited by the killing of Robert Ballou, Jr..

 "It was definitely a landmark killing,” said Ken Bell a retired investigator for the District Attorney’s Hard Core Gang unit. “Nobody doubts the impact of this killing.  That killing has become the status of the shot heard round the world in terms of gang killings.  We had entered into a different world.”

Two Men Shot to Death at "Dinosaur Car Wash" in South Central

Two carloads of furious people yelling at each Labor Day afternoon along Florence Avenue  in South Central whipped into the Green Forrest Car Wash and  continued their verbal rage until one man pulled out a handgun and shot two men to death.

The apparent road rage was in full swing as the cars drove west along Florence past Hoover Street around 2:15 p..m and pulled into the moderately busy car wash, authorities and a witness said.  One of shot men, ages 29 and 26, died at the scene, the other was transported  to California Hospital and pronounced.  

"It does not at this time appear to be gang-related," said Lt. Jeff Nolte , the officer-in-charge of LAPD's South Bureau Homicide, adding that several males fled on foot from the scene after the shooting.   

Minutes after the shooting at the car wash, a few blocks away, bystanders saw a man flee a blue SUV and jump over a fence. As of 7 p.m. tonight, no arrest had been.

The Green Forrest CarWash where two men were shot to death on Labor day.

Man Acted in Self Defense in Shootings That Killed 3, D.A. Says

Saying he acted in "self defense", the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office rejected the murder case of a 25--year-old man who had been arrested in connection with the shootings on Figueroa Street last Friday that left three adults dead.

Anthony Alonzo Cudger, who was wounded in the car-to-car shooting that killed two of his friends and the alleged attacker, was released from custody Tuesday evening after being arrested Saturday morning and held on $1 million bail. 

Wednesday afternoon the District Attorney's office released the following statement: "Regarding Anthony Alonzo Cudger, a case was reviewed for filing consideration yesterday, but was declined because the investigation found that Cudger acted in self defense."  

Street sources said Cudger, Aveion Curtis Bolden, Jacinta Walker, and an unidentified female driver were parked in a silver Toyota Camry  on Figueroa and 87th Street, about to head out to the movies, when a red Nissan Altima pulled up and the passenger started shooting.

Bolden, 20, and his girlfriend Walker, 18 were killed in the backseat and Cudger, sitting in the front passenger seat, was wounded in the shoulder. Cudger returned fire, striking the shooter, Trevor Andre Williams, 33. 

The driver of the Nissan sped away and either he or another person took Williams to the L.A. City Fire Department Station #64 on 108th and Main streets to seek medical attention.. Williams either died en route or at the fire station.

The shootings are part of the ongoing street war between the Hoover Street Criminals and the Main Street Crips.

The LAPD was disappointed Cudger was not charged.

"Of course it upsets us," said Det. Sal LaBarbera of LAPD' South Bureau Criminal Gang Homicide Division. "It tells the gang members it's OK to be armed,  it's OK to shoot it out with each other and there are no consequences. They are back on the street to do it again, to be either suspects or victims., let alone have an innocent person caught up in this."

LaBarbera said the LAPD is "Seeking everyone and anyone involved in this."

Thursday afternoon, the Figueroa Street sidewalk near were Jacinta and Aveion died was covered in memorial candles, known around these parts as murder candles. Their funeral is set for next week. 

To read more:

March 7, 2014 "Hoover vs. Main Street Shootings Recall "Bad Old Days" 

http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2014/3/7/71qr762ua9cb0gbv3auv67id1gwk4t

March 11, 2014  "LAPD Tactics Working: No Hoover Vs. Main Street Paybacks"    (NOTE: Accurate at the time)

http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2014/3/11/lapd-tactics-working-no-hoover-vs-main-street-paybacks

March 20, 2014  "Eight Trey Hoover Dies 2 Week After Being Shot"

http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2014/3/20/hoover-street-shooting-victim-dies

June, 2, 2014    "Nut" From Main Street Gunned Down Monday Morning"

http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2014/6/2/nut-from-main-street-gunned-d own-monday-morning

June 14, 2014  "Stop This Madness" A Mother Pleads As 3 More Are KIilled in South L.A."

 http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2014/6/14/stop-this-madness-a-mother-pleads-as-3-more-are-killed-in-south-la

Couple on right, Aveion Bolden, 20, and Jacinta Walker, 18, were shot to death Friday night on Figueroa and 87th

D.A, Says Man Acted in Self Defense in Hoover- Main Killings

Saying he acted in "self defense", the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office rejected the murder case of a 25--year-old man who had been arrested in connection with the shootings on Figueroa Street last Friday that left three adults dead.

Anthony Alonzo Cudger, who was wounded in the car-to-car shooting that killed two of his friends and the alleged attacker, was released from custody Tuesday evening after being arrested Saturday morning and held on $1 million bail. 

Wednesday afternoon the District Attorney's office released the following statement: "Regarding Anthony Alonzo Cudger, a case was reviewed for filing consideration yesterday, but was declined because the investigation found that Cudger acted in self defense."  

Street sources said Cudger, Aveion Curtis Bolden, Jacinta Walker, and an unidentified female driver were parked in a silver Toyota Camry  on Figueroa and 87th Street, about to head out to the movies, when a red Nissan Altima pulled up and the passenger started shooting.

Bolden, 20, and his girlfriend Walker, 18 were killed in the backseat and Cudger, sitting in the front passenger seat, was wounded in the shoulder. Cudger returned fire, striking the shooter, Trevor Andre Williams, 33. 

The driver of the Nissan sped away and either he or another person took Williams to the L.A. City Fire Department Station #64 on 108th and Main streets to seek medical attention.. Williams either died en route or at the fire station.

The shootings are part of the ongoing street war between the Hoover Street Criminals and the Main Street Crips.

The LAPD was disappointed Cudger was not charged.

"Of course it upsets us," said Det. Sal LaBarbera of LAPD' South Bureau Criminal Gang Homicide Division. "It tells the gang members it's OK to be armed,  it's OK to shoot it out with each other and there are no consequences. They are back on the street to do it again, to be either suspects or victims., let alone have an innocent person caught up in this."

LaBarbera said the LAPD is "Seeking everyone and anyone involved in this."

To read more:

March 7, 2014 "Hoover vs. Main Street Shootings Recall "Bad Old Days" 

http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2014/3/7/71qr762ua9cb0gbv3auv67id1gwk4t

March 11, 2014  "LAPD Tactics Working: No Hoover Vs. Main Street Paybacks"    (NOTE: Accurate at the time)

http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2014/3/11/lapd-tactics-working-no-hoover-vs-main-street-paybacks

March 20, 2014  "Eight Trey Hoover Dies 2 Week After Being Shot"

http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2014/3/20/hoover-street-shooting-victim-dies

June, 2, 2014    "Nut" From Main Street Gunned Down Monday Morning"

http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2014/6/2/nut-from-main-street-gunned-d own-monday-morning

June 14, 2014  "Stop This Madness" A Mother Pleads As 3 More Are KIilled in South L.A."

 http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2014/6/14/stop-this-madness-a-mother-pleads-as-3-more-are-killed-in-south-la

Couple on the right, Jacinta Walker, 18, and Aveion Bolden, 20 were shot to death last Friday on Figueroa and 87th 

"Stop This Madness", A Mother Pleads As 3 More Are Killed in South L.A.

The city's deadliest street gang war escalated Friday night when three more people were killed in the ongoing conflict between the Hoover Street Criminals and the Main Street Crips.

"Oh, my god, please stop this violence," said Janet Sanders Bolden,  mother of Aveion Bolden, 20, who was shot and killed with his girlfriend Jacinta Walker, 18, Friday night as they sat in a car on Figueroa Street near 87th Street. "This is crazy.  This is hurting too many families. Destroying families. Oh, my god! I can't believe this. Please stop this violence. Stop this madness."

Aveion and Jacinta were in the back seat of a car and were about to head out to see the movie "22 Jump Street", when another vehicle approached. One or more occupants of that car, suspected Main Street Crips, starting shooting.  Either someone on the street or in the two victims' car returned fire and wounded one of the assailants. That man, Trevor Williams, 33, died. His body, sources said, was dropped off at the L.A. City Fire Dept. Station 64, on 108th and Main streets, across the street from LAPD's Southeast Division.

Jacinta's 17-year-old cousin Kharyel Taylor, walked in a near-trance on Figueroa Street as friends and family mourned the deaths.

"Cousin, I love you , I love you," Kharyel said. "She was just going to the movies with her boyfriend, I saw her and 10 minutes later, they called me and said she was dead."

The shooting is the latest in a long time battle between two old and powerful southside gangs, The most recent killing was June, 2, when Tijuan "Nut" Folks was shot and killed on 98th Street near Main Street.

Saturday morning as friends and family of the slain couple removed their belongings from a Figueroa Street apartment across the street from where they died, mother Janet recalled how earlier in the day she urged a group of Hoovers not to retaliated.

"I told them not to  retaliate," she said.  "They looked at me and said,'Janet, are you serious?'"

Nut's killing -  http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2014/6/2/nut-from-main-street-gunned-down-monday-morning

Janet Sanders Bolden holds photo of her slain son Aveion and his girlfriend Jacinta, killed Friday on Figueroa and 87th.