War and Peace in Watts, Part 1 of the 2005 LA Weekly Classic Article

President Bush keeps saying America is safer now that Saddam Hussein is out of power. Prez hasn’t been to Watts lately.

The much heralded, often copied and never equaled Watts housing-project gang peace treaty of 1992 has officially imploded, leaving bodies, grieving families and shell casings scattered over the most infamous black neighborhood west of the South Side of Chicago.

The nights of mixing purple, blue and red are over. Gone are the days when the Grape Street Watts Crips from Jordan Downs (purple), the Bounty Hunter Bloods from Nickerson Gardens (red) and the Project, or PJ, Crips from Imperial Courts (blue) could encounter one another without fear of death.

During the wild year of 1989, in the LAPD reporting districts that cover the three main housing projects in Watts, there were 25 homicides. During the height of the treaty in 1997, there were four. So far this year there have been at least seven killings in and around the projects, dozens of shootings, a reported 187 violent crimes and, with all that, the acknowledgment that there is no more treaty.

Long gone are the joyous parties and rowdy football games that homies from the projects threw and played together. Gone are the days when a gangster from the Jordans who had a child with a lady from the Nickerson could have a lazy Sunday-afternoon barbecue in peace. “I can’t even go see my son,” says Grape Street member Dell (“like the computer”) Hester, 21. “I got a baby from a girl in the Nickersons, but I can’t even go there no more. It’s gonna be a real hot summer.”

While many in law enforcement say the treaty has been shaky for years, only recently have actual gang members themselves admitted it. The 1992 treaty, which became official the day before the Rodney King verdict set the city ablaze, was born from older gang members who did not want their children to go through the dread they had long endured. It was marked by celebrations, by families and friends being able to visit each other in different projects without fear.

But in the last year or so, as a new generation of gang members came of shooting age, which is about 13 to 16, word began to spread that the treaty was on the ropes. And in the projects, words, rumors, truth and fiction get spread fast. Soon residents of Nickerson Gardens knew it wasn’t wise anymore to go to Jordan Downs, and folks from there knew they weren’t getting the royal treatment if they popped in at the Nickersons or Imperial Courts.

“We ain’t even thinking about a peace treaty right now,” says Bow Wow, a respected 26-year-old from Grape Street. “We’re just trying to get a cease-fire. Just trying to stop all the shootings.”

Thomas “Tuck” Graham Jr., 20, a Bounty Hunter who was so young when he started banging he doesn’t even remember how he got his nickname, says the days of peace with Grape Street are over.

“We used to see Grape Street members come over here and we’d give them a pass,” says Tuck as he smokes a cigarette and sips on a small bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice. “But now things are different. I see a Grape Streeter, especially in the Nickersons, he ain’t getting no motherfuckin’ passes, especially since they killed my homey.” His homey was Dwayne “Sexy Wayne” Brooks, 22, a Bounty Hunter renowned as a smooth-talking ladies’ man.

The Watts peace treaty certainly did not stop all violence in the housing projects. Internal, in-house disputes were often settled with Mac 10s and Sigs. There were also gang member–vs.–rival gang member acts of violence, but for the most part this was done on an individual level, a personal dispute between, say, a Bounty Hunter and a Grape Streeter over a range of things, from drugs to, of course, women. But the peace treaty pretty much squashed one gang firing on another gang simply because they were from a different hood. 

 The killing of Sexy Wayne marked a clear return of killing someone just for that very reason. On March 5, there is a minor conflict in Cerritos at a skating rink. For decades, such places have been magnets for many black gang members. Details of the incident are sketchy, but either words or a few fists are briefly exchanged. Bounty Hunters say Sexy Wayne is not involved in the incident. Later, a group of cars drives to the Artesia Transit Yard near Gardena, where there is a Park and Ride MTA station.

“Shortly before 2 a.m., a group of up to 70 cars that had been cruising just happened to stop there,” says Detective John Goodman of the LAPD’s Harbor Division. “There was some kind of confrontation, and there were a lot of shots fired. Brooks was shot and killed. A lot of people saw it. That may have started the escalation in the current violence.”

Street rumors quickly circulate that the shooter was from Grape Street. Brooks, decked out in Blood red, had been with members of the PJ Crips, who have become strange gang fellows of late with the Bounty Hunters.

Perhaps the most unusual result of the latest outbreak is that it has brought the Bounty Hunters, the city’s most notorious Blood gang, closer than ever to the PJ Crips of Imperial Courts, and that alliance against the Grape Street Crips is sending bewilderment throughout the black street-gang community. 

Nine miles away from Watts, in Hyde Park, a long way in gangland L.A., Kevin “Big Cat” Doucette, a notorious shot caller of the Rollin’ 60s Crips, is telling his cohorts about that distant gang war. “That’s about the craziest shit I ever heard,” says Big Cat, 45. “The PJs and the Bounty Hunters teaming up against Grape Street. Crips and Bloods teaming up to go at Crips.”

Even law enforcement is surprised by the alliance. “The alliance doesn’t seem plausible or possible, but that’s what we’re hearing,” says Detective Dana Ellison of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Century Station. “The so-called treaty is dead.”

And with the dead treaty comes the return of the payback shooting. Bounty Hunter or PJ Crip gets killed, supposedly by Grape Street, then a Grape Street must die in retaliation. Doesn’t have to be the shooter that gets hit with the payback. Sometimes, doesn’t even have to be a gang member. Just someone living in the rival project will do.

Someone like Jason Harrison.

A week after Sexy Wayne was killed, Harrison, 19, who is not a Grape Street gang member, is gunned down on 102nd Street inside Jordan Downs. It’s on. The next day, the Imperial Courts project is shot up. Then the Nickersons gets sprayed. Then Jordan Downs. Then, then, then.

Sal LaBarbera, the lead homicide detective for the LAPD’s Southeast Division, which covers Watts, says tension is as high as it’s been in a long, long time.

“You can tell the energy level is up in Grape Street,” says LaBarbera, a cool New Yorker straight outta Central Casting. “Guys are on guard duty. Trash cans are lined up at the entrance to the projects. Folks are ready to go. Ready to run into their apartment and get the guns.” He’s right, of course.

It’s a rainy late night inside Jordan Downs on 102nd Street near an entrance to the projects off Juniper Street and 103rd, where two dumpsters the size of Escalades are placed. Young men and teenagers of the 700-unit project are indeed on the lookout for strangers while they smoke chronic and sip Olde English 800, still a favorite after all these years.

Contrary to popular opinion, especially from Westsiders who’ve never been here, Jordan Downs can be a welcoming place, especially at a Saturday-afternoon barbecue or baseball game. You might get some curious glances at first, but then, after a few intros, a couple of beers, it’s usually cool. Certainly a warmer welcome than a Grape Street Crip would get on Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills.

But at night, at least this one (and many others), the place is about as friendly as Uday and Qusay in a bad mood during the Persian Gulf War.

“The fuck you doin’ here? Get the fuck outta here, bitch,” booms a Grape Streeter to me as I slowly drive by. I’m in an Enterprise-rented black Chevy Aveo with doors so flimsy one burst from a Kalashnikov would turn them into Emmenthaler Swiss cheese.

“Hello, officer,” says another, which for years has been a common nighttime greeting to me in Watts. Not a lot of Armenians here. I stop in the lot between buildings 99 and 100 and inform the two Crips that I’m a reporter trying to find out what happened to Jason, trying to humanize him. From nowhere, two more Grape Street Crips appear, one of them standing in a doorway. “You need to leave. We ain’t talking to no reporters.”

I park the Aveo in the lot a short distance from my new buddies, get out of the car, and walk over to the makeshift memorial display of murder candles, yellow roses, a large purple bunny rabbit and a framed photo of Jason Harrison. Scribble a few notes — barely legible later — and head back to the Aveo.

A fifth Grape Streeter, older, like in his 40s, approaches, identifies himself only as Wes, and speaks quietly. “Jason was a good kid. Been knowing him since he was 12. Just had seen him an hour before he got shot, talking to some of the guys, and then I guess he was walking to his grandmother’s, right over there. Be careful.”

I want to talk to the younger gang members, but figure it’s early in my reporting and why push it. At least, that’s my excuse to myself. I drive away.

The next day, a former teacher of Harrison’s praises him. “Jason was just a great, great kid. When I heard what had happened, it felt like I’d been hit in the gut with a baseball bat,” says Gary Miles, a teacher at Markham Middle School and a longtime friend of the Harrison family. “Jason was never involved in any of the Grape Street gang stuff. He was a good, hard-working student. One of those kids, every time you saw him, he’d give you a pound and a hug. Always had a smile. A kid that loved life.

“Lots of people not from around here don’t understand how entrenched people are to their neighborhood, to their set,” says Miles. “Lots of these kids are third-generation gang members from these projects. Forget about being jumped in. These kids are born in.”

Miles, who is from Brooklyn, says the lure of the streets can often be too tempting for a project boy to resist. “Some kids would rather be a part of the hood thing than go on to junior college or a university if they could. It’s that lure. Plus, you throw in the music culture, MTV, and it just adds to the desire. Do I want to be a college football player or do I want to be hood famous? It becomes a seduction.”

Two weeks after he died, Jason Harrison is laid to rest. His funeral, at the Inglewood Mortuary, is overflowing with emotion and mourners. About a hundred guys, guys that grew up together, went to Folsom and Corcoran together, just mingle outside during the services. Jason’s father has “Kodak RIP” shaved into the back of his head. Jason’s nickname was Kodak because he blinked a lot.

His aunt goes on a tirade during her eulogy. “We are here today to take a real good look at our lives. There’s been too many deaths on our streets. When a person takes your life, you don’t take one life. You kill a family. You kill a community.”

The aunt ratchets up her voice. “Today, parents are burying their children. Kids are killing kids. Children are killing, then going to bed snoring.” A purple-clad teenage boy passes out. He starts shaking. Almost no one notices, even the three Crips standing directly behind him. The aunt starts to scream. “He coulda been a gardener, a chauffeur, a movie producer, a cook. We don’t know what Jason coulda been.” 

At the Community Self Determination Institute, on the northern border of Watts, executive director Aqueela Sherrills describes the current situation as a “powder keg.”

“It’s the worst it’s been since the treaty in 1992,” says Sherrills, whose own 19-year-old son, Terrell, was killed in 2003 in an unrelated incident. “It’s crazy out there right now.”

Sherrills and his brother Daude, both of whom have been active in the gang peace movement for more than a decade and who have traveled the world speaking about it, say the current problem is a matter of leadership.

The other gangs couldn’t agree more. Many PJ Crips and the Bounty Hunters lay most of the blame on the Grape Street gang, who they say have lost their leadership, which has cut loose a new generation of young gang members to go on shooting sprees.

Daude Sherrills admits the leadership in Grape Street is not what it once was, but also says, “Imperial Courts has a lot of enemies. We’re not responsible for their enemies.

“But the hopelessness and joblessness create an idleness, which can create apathy for life,” he continues. “And that creates a domino effect that leads to murder and mayhem in the streets. Our race is in worse condition than we were before the ’65 riots. Everyone needs to take responsibility. We are fortunate more lives haven’t been lost.”

Throughout the years, though, many lives have been lost in the three housing projects. According to LAPD statistics, from 1989 to May 21 this year, in the three reporting districts, or R.D.s, that cover Jordan Downs (R.D. 1829), Nickerson Gardens (R.D. 1846) and Imperial Courts (R.D. 1849), there have been 202 homicides. During that same period, there have been a startling 6,470 assaults in the three projects. These numbers cover just three reporting districts, not including all of Watts, out of a total of more than 1,000 in the city.

In 2003, as things started to heat up, there were 12 homicides in the three projects. In comparison, that year the entire West L.A. Division, with 63 R.D.s, had three homicides.

“There’s no denying it’s a very violent place,” says Captain Sergio Diaz, commander of the Southeast Division, which covers more than just Watts. “As of May 21, there had been 30 homicides in Southeast Division, an area less than 10 square miles and 140,000 people. That’s 10 times the national average.” 

To be closer to the late-night scene, when violence is most likely, and to get a better sense of the mood of the community at its most vulnerable, I decide to move in for a couple of nights at one of the two motels along Wilmington Avenue, between Nickerson Gardens and Jordan Downs.

I have been warned by several gang members not to do this. “But if you do,” laughs Daude Sherrills, “bring your own sheets.” I do. Red 300-count Egyptian cotton. I had been saving them for a special occasion. This wasn’t what I had in mind.

My choices are the Villa Hills, near the railroad tracks off 108th Street, and the Mirror Motel, down on 112th Street. I check out the Villa Hills first. I am somewhat intrigued by the name. There’s not a hill for miles, and to call this place a villa is like calling Fallujah a resort town. Later, I realize the Hills part must have been taken from the slight 5- or 6-foot rise on Wilmington for the railroad tracks, and I guess the Villa part comes from the small bougainvillea near the front of the motel. The rooms go for $40 a night. The manager shows me Room 16. As soon as the door opens, the stench hits your nose like a jab from Larry Holmes. A combination of odors I don’t even want to think about. I tell the guy thanks and head back to check out the Mirror.

The Mirror, painted a faded powder-blue, is a bit larger, two stories, and has 30 rooms. At 4 p.m., there’s only one car in the parking lot. I ask the Indian owner-manager how much for a room for the night. Thirty-five dollars. But then he says something very un-innkeeper-like — he fervently implores me not to rent a room here. “No, no,” he says. “No, you should not stay here. It’s not good around here.” He holds up his left hand and starts shooting off an imaginary pistol. “Boom, boom, boom. Every night, every day. Don’t stay here.”

I’m tempted, but head back and rent Room 16 at the Villa Hills. (I’ll go back to the Mirror another night.) I bring in the sheets. They’re full-size and don’t fit the queen-size bed, but I get two corners on, which is enough. There’s a television that gets Channel 7 and a few others. No porno. There’s a dirty sink and a tiny shower, a ratty dresser, a broken window screen, and walls that appear to have been splattered with something that was probably once cavity blood.

Across the street, Tommy’s Liquor is getting ready to close up at 7 p.m. “It’s not safe here at night,” the clerk says. A couple blocks away, a taco truck stays open later, doing a decent business in the early evening.

As night falls, cars start showing up at the Villa Hills. Some stay for maybe a half-hour. Others, all night. Some guests make a lot of racket arguing, and some are clearly having a good time.

Around 11 p.m., I take the Aveo out for a cruise through the three projects. They seem rather quiet on this night. In Imperial Courts, one lone, young PJ Crip, who won’t give even his nickname, asks, “What we suppose to do? Just let Grape Street shoot at us?”

Still, even at this hour, several front doors are open and many folks appear as relaxed as if they were at a Sunday-afternoon picnic in the park. It takes more than decades of homicide to lock down the residents of Watts.

A short time later, I head back to what Daude Sherrills calls “the only five-star hotel in Watts.” After a while, I go out for a short walk, past the railroad tracks, toward 107th Street. There’s a couple walking the same stretch of forgotten road. I hear at least five gunshots and instinctively duck down a bit, though the shots are not from a nearby passing car. The lady ahead laughs and calls out, “Fraidy cat.” Her companion laughs too.

The next morning, I learn from police that a few blocks away, Keith Moore, 19, of Jordan Downs, was shot to death at 105th and Lou Dillon, in an area of Watts called Fudge Town. These shots are not the only ones of the night. Two other times, gunfire is heard near the motel. Police later say the Fudge Town killing is the only shooting they are aware of. No one calls the cops in Watts just to report gunfire. Someone needs to be hit. If gang members here were good marksmen, the homicide rate in Watts would be world-class bad.

COMING NEXT - PART 2

Gordon Parks To Students in Watts - "Nothing Can Stop You"

Published L.A.Times Feb. 28, 1997

Internationally celebrated photojournalist Gordon Parks was on his own at 15, with both his parents dead. Hungry, broke and shivering on a freezing evening in St. Paul, Minn., he confronted a train conductor who had a wad of money. Parks pulled a switchblade.

It was the only time he almost committed a major crime, Parks, 84, told a group of Verbum Dei High School students Thursday in Watts.

"At that moment, in that white man's face, I saw my father's black face," he said. "And I heard my father say, 'What the hell are you doing?' So I looked at the conductor and said: 'You wanna buy a knife?' "

He has inspired generations of African Americans through his photography, writings, movies, music and, perhaps most importantly, his never-say-die spirit.

And that spirit was out in full force Thursday when Parks spoke to students from Verbum Dei High School at the Watts Labor Community Action Committee Center.

"We have brought you history today," said Janine Watkins, the center's special events coordinator. More than 100 students sat in rapt attention as Parks took them through highlights of his life.

For an hour, the dapper former Life magazine photographer delighted the group with his humor, philosophy and tales of growing up black in the Midwest during the Depression.

"If you want to do something, nothing can stop you," said Parks, who wrote and directed feature films such as "Shaft" and "The Learning Tree." "You can do anything you want to do if you want it bad enough."

Parks credited his deeply religious parents with giving him the proper values. In order to provide a skin graft for a young girl who had been badly burned in a house fire, Parks' father, Jackson, donated skin from his back.

Later, someone asked Parks' father if the girl's family had thanked him and sent flowers.

"My father told the man, 'I didn't do it for thanks. I didn't do it for flowers. I did it for the girl.' "

One student asked Parks, who has inspired so many, who was his inspiration. After mentioning his parents again, Parks said his life changed when he viewed Farm Service Administration photographs depicting the devastating effects of the Depression.

"I thought I could show racism the way the FSA showed the Depression," he said.

A short while after seeing those photos, he sold his first photograph to the Washington Post. It showed a black cleaning woman holding a mop and a broom standing before the American flag. Parks compares the shot to Grant Wood's painting "American Gothic." Today, it is Parks' most famous photograph.

In 1949, he became Life's first black staff photographer and traveled the world. One of his most famous articles was a profile of Red Jackson, a Harlem street gang leader with whom he lived for three months. A generation later, Parks' reputation helped him gain access to the Black Panthers.

"Once we were riding around in Berkeley and one of the Panthers had a gun," Parks said. "I told him my 35 [millimeter camera] was more powerful than his 45."

Three weeks later, Parks said, that Panther was dead.

Margret Triplett, an English teacher at all-boys Verbum Dei, said she wanted her class to take away an appreciation for the past.

"He shows that it doesn't matter where you're from, you have an opportunity to move forward," Triplett said.

Derrick Hogan, 13, who appeared somewhat awe-struck by Parks, said: "I learned about history. People think it's bad now, but it was worse back then."

Parks, who is still busy writing and composing and who was honored Thursday by the Director's Guild of America, had high praise for the Watts Labor Action Community Center. In all his travels around the world, he said, he had never seen a place so committed to the youth of the neighborhood.

Wearing a stylish double-breasted blue blazer, silver handkerchief and brown plaid pants, the legendary photojournalist posed for pictures with the group and left the students with one last bit of advice:

"Don't let anybody tell you you can't do something. Be prepared and make yourself so special that they'll have no choice. They'll have to hire you. There is no obstacle you can't overcome. There are no excuses."

Gordon Parks was born in 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas. He died in 2006 in New York City, The photograph is by Alfred Eisenstaedt, if that means anything to you. 

Watts Sad, Weary and Tense After Nickerson Gardens and Grape Street Homicides

Two years ago, with his South East  High School Jaguars trailing the Huntington Park High School Spartans by 24 points,  then-14-year-old Elijah Galbreath - pulled groin muscle and all -  led his team to a thrilling, come-from-behind victory with four touchdown runs.

This past Sunday, around 2 p.m.,  on 103rd and Grape Street, across the way from Jordan Downs,  Galbreath had no where to run. He had just walked out of Ronnie's Market and was headed home when a car slammed to a halt and a male with a gun exited. Elijah - hemmed in by a large fence, the car and the gunman - surrendered.   He dropped to his knees and put up his hands. The assailant shot him.

Krystal Galbreath, Elijah's sister, was at home in Jordan Downs when someone pounded on her door moments later..

"They just shot your brother," she was told. Krystal ran across 103rd Street and saw her mortally wounded younger brother.  " I went crazy. I just went crazy."  

Elijah was taken to St. Francis Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. 

Roughly two and half hours earlier, a mile-and-a-half away in Nickerson Gardens, another gunman - maybe two - entered those projects through a gate off Imperial Highway west of Success Avenue, saw a target and opened fire. Shot and killed was a beloved lifelong  Watts resident, Clinton "J B" Givens, 39.  

"I was just walking into my home when I heard shots," said a shell-shocked LaTasha Manley, Givens' woman and the mother of his children. "I looked back outside and, and, and there he was." 

"JB's dream was to make sure me and our kids were all right," Manley said as she showed off family photographs. "He wasn't my boyfriend. He was my man."

The two killings have brought a tension and eerie stillness to Watts not felt since  - almost two years to the day - September, 23, 2013, when for rapper Kevin "Flipside" White, 44,  of the Nickersons and Markice "Chiccen" Brider, 29, of Imperial Courts, were shot and killed within minutes of each other, allegedly by Grape Street Crips.  (For more on that check this link  http://www.krikorianwrites.com/blog/2013/9/24/watts-tense-after-2-killings-3-arrested-from-grape-st)

As rough as it is, Nickerson Gardens might have the best sense of humor in town.  But, Tuesday afternoon it was unusually somber, a combination of sadness for JB, concern a street gang battle was looming and a resigned awareness that its fiery past could be so easily rekindled.  At the gym, in the office, in the courtyard where JB died, the animation so prevalent in the projects was gone.

"Senseless, senseless, senseless," said Ronald "Kartoon" Antwine in a powerful Facebook post that drew dozens of agreeing comments.

LAPD's South Bureau Commander Phil Tingirides, who as captain of the Southeast Division was instrumental in developing better-than-ever relations between police and the Watts community - sought to squash fast rumors the killings were part of any Nickerson Gardens Bounty Hunters Bloods against Jordan Downs Grape Street Crips conflict. 

"People are scared, but right now it does not look that way," said Tingirides. "We need to hold off. Fortunately, the community is helping out and we are getting a lot of calls." 

Over on 105th Street, the family of Elijah Galbreath gathered and quietly greeted neighbors, friends. and out-of-town relatives who had flown in from other states to be with them. 

"They killed me when they killed my baby," said Elijah's mother Timeca Person. "They are taking out kids away forever."

When told of the earlier killing in Nickerson Gardens, Elijah's aunt who had flown in from Arizona, expressed shock.

"They haven't learned yet," said Vertrice Dooley, who recalled Elijah as respectful, funny, quick to dance and helpful. "Elijah was kind to everybody. If there were younger kids who needed any kind of help, he was happy to help them."

Mileon James, the football coach at Augustus Hawkins High School where Elijah had  transferred, spoke of the teenager's maturity, talent  and goals.

"He wanted to make his mom and dad proud and be able to get them in a better place," said James, "Elijah had this charisma about him. And he was freakishly athletic." 

Moran Galbreath, 43, Elijah's father, sat on a bench near the family home front door and spoke passionately about his son's death and that of so many other black males.

"This has got to stop." said Galbreath, 43, "We are crying and marching over police killing us, but we are annihilating ourselves. We are steadily destroying our own people."

With a distant gaze, Galbreath proudly talked about that game against Huntington Park High when his son "single-handedly brought his team back"  to a stunning victory.  "He was so determined."

Proud dad recalled the time he took Elijah to see his older brother Daylon who is at Langston University in Oklahoma on a scholarship. 

"Elijah got to work out with his brother and the team there and he turned to me and said 'This is me."

On 103rd a few yards from Grape Street, dozens of "murder candles" were lit in that all-too-familiar site of a fast memorial to the street slain. Moran Galbreath shook his head. "Our kids deserve more than this. Our kids don't deserve to be candles on a corner."  

Clinton "JB" Givens and Latasha manley with their children

The Beautiful Farewell of Sam Benton, The "I'm Blessed Man"

I have attended more than 100 funerals, but save services for my closest family, I have never been more moved at one than I was today for the funeral of a 62-year-old homeless man who was stabbed to death two weeks ago near Nickerson Gardens.

I called him the "I'm Blessed Man" here when I wrote of his  ignominious St. Valentine's Day death on 112th Street and Evers around 6:30 p.m., his body found laying face down, half on the sidewalk, half on a brown lawn next to a chain link fence and a plant. That's what he would say, "I'm blessed",  whenever a lady - the lady who found him laid out - would ask him how he was doing. I was struck how no one I talked to the next day in the projects, the tightest-knit community in town, knew who this guy was. So I vowed to find out.

He was Samuel Lee Benton, Jr., born Nov 4, 1951 and raised in Compton, on Piru Street. He graduated from Centennial High School and enlisted and served in the United States Marine Corps as a medic in Vietnam.  He was well-read, a jack-of-all-trades, a single man eager to help his family and friends. He was a car salesman at Sopp Chevrolet in Bell. But, after he lost that job, he started to skid. He lived in the small homeless encampment near the 105 Freeway and Central Avenue where he panhandled the off-ramps .He was a crack smoker.

And as addled by drugs as he was, Sam would tell anyone who bothered to ask how he was that he was "blessed."

"When i read what you wrote about Sam always saying 'I'm blessed', I thought, yeah, that was my brother," said Dianne Grey a few days ago as she and her sister and daughter reminisced about Sam Benton.. 

But, you never can know a stranger until you go to their funeral.

I didn't know what to expect as I drove toward the funeral at the Simpson Family Mortuary in Inglewood. Would there be only the family I had visited? Maybe Cousin Keith, who I talked to, also.  Maybe a few of the homeless, though i doubted that. So when I pulled into the packed parking lot off Manchester near Crenshaw, I thought maybe there was another funeral going on there as well as Benton's. I even asked someone "Is this for Sam Benton?" It was.. 

Inside the Chapel of Roses were roughly 100 impeccably-dressed family and friends of Sam who shed few tears, perhaps because the shock of the two-week-old homicide had subsided.

Still, on this very rainy day, most seemed surprised, if not alarmed, to hear the words of Sam himself. On a February 28th, nine or 10 years ago, Sam Benton was sitting on the porch of his "Grannies" house on Piru Street when friend and neighbor Kim Curry-Goldsby walked up.

"I want you to read this at my funeral," Sam told Kim, adding "Promise me you'll read this at my funeral,"  Curry-Goldsby promised she would with one condition; That he accept the lord. He did.

Today, Kim Curry-Goldsby, looked back at the American flag-draped coffin holding Samuel Lee Benton, Jr, and made good on her promise. 

"I can no longer afford to be nonchalant about my future. Today will be the day my life becomes on track. Life not is a total bust. I need to make a drastic change. I'm making a mistake only living one day at a time."

Curry-Goldsby went on reading more of Benton's words, then added that the paper was signed "February 28, but no year listed. It was either 2004 or 2005. I can't remember.  Anyway, his funeral was supposed to be yesterday, February 28."

Then the song "Goin' Up Yonder" by Walter Hawkins and Lady Tramaine came on. If ever a song and moment went together, it was right here and now.

"If you want to know  ...    where I'm going...., where i"m going ...soon,........ if anybody asks you....., .where I'm going....... where I'm going....., soon. ......I'm goin' up yonder...... I'm goin' up yonder....I'm going up yonder... to be with my Lord."

Man, I'm not religious but, Jesus, hearing that song in that setting. that got to me. I hope you listen to that song. Here it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGBr42HNlKY

After that song, Rev. D. D. Alexander spoke eloquently, not just about Benton, but about the homeless in general. "Sometimes we need to look at a person through their eyes. Sam, in his own way, was successful. Now Sam is done with the troubles of this world."

Others spoke fondly of Sam. "Sam had a lot of love," said a man who would only give his name as Dave. His sisters, his family, his friends would come by the off ramp and give him food, give him some money. They want him to come home, but Sam didn't want to be a burden to anyone." 

His niece Tanisha said her uncle was a good handyman and always there for her when she needed him. "Whenever he came over, I was like thinking, 'What do I need fixing?'"  He will forever be missed. I love you Uncle Sam.". 

One of Sam's sisters, who works near Watts and didn't want her name used, said  "He said he saw some some action in Vietnam, but not a lot. He didn't talk about it. When he came back from Vietnam i was so happy to see him, I just hugged him hard and i didn't notice anything wrong with him."

 Another sister spoke about how it was difficult to know her brother was out on the streets, but she had come to accept it. 

"A lot people, see someone living on the streets and think, 'How does someone's family member end up like that?'", said Benton's sister Dianne Gray. "I still don't understand it. But, Sam, he really was content. He really meant it when he said he was blessed. You're thinking outwardly he looks like a bum. But, inside, deep down he mean it. I heard someone said Sam thought  he was blessed. My brother knew he was blessed.'

And that plant his head lay next to as he bled to death on East 112th Street, four miles from his sister Dianne's home on West 112th., it was a Bird of Paradise. That's high drama, I know. But, it's true .

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LAPD Criminal Gang Homicide Division detectives Pete McCoy and James Jameson are actively working the case. The coroner's office said he was killed by a single knife wound to the chest. If anyone has information about who killed Sam Benton, call (213) 485-4341.

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A Gay Leader Emerges In A Watts Housing Project

Deshawn Cole came out at Watts' Imperial Courts project, blazing an inner-city trail

By Michael KrikorianThursday, Apr 4 2013

Asked if being poor, black and gay hurt him at the start of his career, author James Baldwin famously replied that his situation "was so outrageous ... you had to find a way to use it." Deshawn Cole knows outrageous and he, too, is trying to make the most of being a young, gay, black man — at Imperial Courts public housing project in Watts, where coming out has long been scorned as a manhood wasted.

"Early on I knew I was different," says Cole, 23, who lives at the project and works in its on-site recreation center for the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. "I was always a leader. ... When I saw someone who was outspoken or different, they had to be in my circle."  

As a teen, Cole says, "I know I confused people — it was fun. It was, like, 'This guy is doing cheerleading — gay. But he's playing football and fighting — can't be gay.' "

Gallup poll data show that 3.6 percent of blacks identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, as do 3.5 percent of all Americans. But against the backdrop of the recent U.S. Supreme Court hearings on same-sex marriage, there's still a strong anti-gay taboo in many inner-city communities. Pew Research Center found that while Latino support for gay marriage has surged to 59 percent, the longtime low support by blacks for gay marriage has edged up to just 38 percent. In 2008, many Latinos and blacks voted in favor of Proposition 8 to ban same-sex marriage.

At Imperial Courts, which gained infamy as a violent bastion of the Project Watts Crips (PJs) gang, Cole, who supports gay marriage, is said by many to be the first boy to live openly as a homosexual. His mother, Cynthia Mendenhall, says, "De­shawn wasn't the first gay person in the Courts, but he was the first one to really be proud of it and come out" about a decade ago.

Cole sees attitudes — even among many PJs — finally changing. Subjected as a youth to countless sexual slurs — Cole estimates that "back in the day" he was called "faggot" several thousand times — he pushed back as a student at Ritter Elementary School and Markham Middle School, jumping into fistfights and finally revealing his sexuality to his disapproving father.

Cole has become a respected community figure whose principles have earned him an unusual form of street cred: tough, kind-hearted — and out.

Imperial Courts resident Ruben Quintana, 25, calls Cole "part of the reason things are changing around here." Quintana, who is straight, says, "In a way, he's like a leader in the gay rights movement the way people were leaders in the civil rights movement."

Mendenhall, known as "Sista," a former PJ Crip–turned–gang interventionist and member of the Watts Gang Task Force, explains, "He's been a mentor to a lot of young people, both straight and gay." When her son was small, "Lots of people told me he's just confused," she recalls. "They said it was a devil. They told me to pray our way out of this. They thought they meant well."

In 2007 Cole graduated from Compton's Dominguez High School and completed a certified course at Marinello Schools of Beauty in Paramount. He still loves to "do hair" — his own, when straightened, flows in a ponytail to his midback. But last year, he found a rewarding calling as a recreational aide at Imperial Courts Recreation Center, where he had long volunteered.

"He's a major asset to Imperial Courts," says Alea Douglas, a Rec & Parks coordinator. "He's talented, he's creative, he's dedicated and he's a team player. The kids here are lucky to have him."

Many who live in the 490-unit housing project, which is calmer than it once was, admire Cole. One day, as he discusses plans for the Dynasty Imperial High Kickers Drill Team and Drum Squad that he coaches at the recreation center, a little Latino girl arcing on a nearby swing calls out: "Deshawn! Deshawn! You know my eighth birthday is coming up, right?"

"Happy birthday, girl. When is it?" She gives him the date — it's more than five weeks away. "OK. We'll have a party."

When Cole was a student at troubled Markham Middle School, which sits almost in the bull's-eye of Imperial Courts and its rival projects, Jordan Downs and Nickerson Gardens, he remembers "fighting on two fronts," one over gang turf, the other over his sexual orientation. (Cole's brothers Tony and Darrian, both PJs, died violently.)

His mother recalls, "Security guards, some teachers, they would say in a low-key way it was his fault" that other students harassed him. "Like, 'Why does he have to dress that way?' or 'He's asking for it being like that.' But I never gave up on supporting his dreams."

Cole lived in particular anguish over what his strict, military-bearing father thought. "What father wants a gay boy?" Cole asks. "Do you think when a wife is pregnant, the husband says, 'I hope he turns out gay?' "

His father, Dwight Cole, 54, is stout and muscular, a no-nonsense, retired National Guard veteran. "Look, I felt he was gay, but I wanted him to tell me," his father says. "Everybody kept telling me, but I wanted him to tell me."

Once Deshawn did tell his father, Dwight Cole informed him that he could not join drill team or engage in other nontraditional activities. "I ain't gonna lie. It hurt," he says. "You want your boys to have kids. Carry on the name. Any father wants that. Even if your daughter is gay, you want her to have kids. That's just the way it is. But I love Deshawn."

In Watts, respect is vital. In Imperial Courts, a lot of that respect must come from the PJs. Cole is not an active gang member, but he acknowledges, "Just by living in the projects, you're already from the gang. So you might as well say, 'I'm from PJs.' "

It was Deshawn's fistfight in 2004 or 2005 with his brother Darrian that convinced many local toughs to grudgingly accept a gay youth in the hood.

As Dwight Cole explains, he'd told Darrian, " 'This is not your life. If your brother is gay, he's gay.' ... But Darrian wouldn't accept him." Darrian often belittled Deshawn, saying he was going to "beat the gayness" out of him. His dad finally told Deshawn "he was going to have to fight Darrian to get his respect." Cole decided his father was right. "I stepped up for myself. A 'faggot' is a sissy boy. I'm a gay boy — I'd step up to them."

Their wild fistfight "tore up the house," says his father. "But in the end, Deshawn had whipped him out of the house."

That violent episode is partly how Cole won respect at Imperial Courts. But, just as importantly, he freely embraced others. Close friend Paul Cook says that without Cole, he wouldn't be out of the closet. "He helped pave the way for me in terms of being gay," says Cook, whom Cole teases with the nickname "Paulette, my daughter."

There are still misconceptions and anti-gay sentiment in Watts. One area resident, admired by some for his knockout punch, explained toL.A. Weekly: "In the body there are male hormones and female hormones. In Deshawn's body it was like they had a war, the male hormones against the females hormones, and the bitches won."

Told of this theory, Cole starts laughing.

Another prominent Watts figure wondered: "Was he born this way or did he get 'turned out?' " — implying Cole was changed by a sexual attack. That gets a "Stupid" response from Cole.

Imperial Courts is seen by many as a gang-infested hellhole, a vast concrete corral one step up from homelessness for single mothers and unemployed men who hang out on corners to drink and sell drugs.

Some of that can be found at Imperial Courts. But what also is found there is a keen sense of community that's stronger than in the vast majority of L.A. neighborhoods.

One March evening, Deshawn Cole and Cynthia Mendenhall linger for more than an hour on a sidewalk in the heart of the project, saying, "Hi, baby" and "What up, boo" to about 60 neighbors who pass by.

Cole's mother explains, "It wasn't at all acceptable until Deshawn came out." But even as she speaks, several young people near the recreation center start yelling at an effeminate young man, shouting "Bitch!" and "You look like a girl!"

"Hear that?" Mendenhall asks. "That boy is gay, and he dresses and acts just like a woman. ... So they giving him a hard time. Deshawn tries to mentor him. Let him know he can't be too, what's the word —  flamboyant — around here."

For all that's changing, she says, "What we need is a gay and lesbian center right here in Watts. ... People in Watts, South Central and Compton, they need somewhere to go if they need counseling. They shouldn't have to go all the way to Hollywood. Hollywood needs to come here."