Howard's Sermons and Article Clippings.

Howard's Sermons and Article Clippings.

About Me

My photo
Im a Mainline protestant minister who loves serving in multicultural and urban contexts. I'm very interested in how liberation theology and existential-humanistic psychology are applied to the praxis of pastoral care and counseling. My most profound encounters with God come as we sojourn as brothers and sisters seeking the inbreaking of God's reign, here and now.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Darfur crisis worse,

Darfur crisis worse, U.N. says
From the Associated PressFebruary 23, 2008

The already difficult humanitarian situation in the Darfur region of Sudan has worsened further as a result of new fighting and increased banditry, U.N. aid agencies said Friday. The U.N. refugee agency said staff are unable to reach thousands of people who have fled across the border to Chad because of aerial bombardment on the Sudanese side.

The World Food Program said dozens of its trucks have been stolen at gunpoint in Darfur since the beginning of the year, endangering the delivery of humanitarian aid on which millions depend.Sudanese forces began bombing areas in West Darfur earlier this month in a renewed attempt to defeat rebel groups who have been fighting the government for more than four years. The conflict is estimated to have cost some 200,000 lives and displaced at least 2.5 million people.
A joint mission by several U.N. agencies that visited the town of Sirba in West Darfur on Thursday found that 40 percent of the buildings in the town had been burned to the ground by recent fighting.Serge Male, resident coordinator for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Chad, said his staff tried on Friday to reach the border area where newly arrived refugees from Darfur have been gathering. The aid workers, who evacuated the area Monday for safety reasons, turned back because they could hear bombs exploding on the other side of the border.
"The bombing is taking place so close that it's dangerous to go there, even on the Chadian side of the border," Male told The Associated Press by telephone from the capital N'Djamena."We have seen helicopters, and we think they were the ones doing these things," he said. UNHCR estimates that some 10,000 refugees from Darfur have arrived in Chad since bombing began Feb. 8, but Male said the precise number was difficult to determine because people were crossing back and forth, depending on the security situation on the day.
A team of local staff is providing minimum medical care to wounded Darfurians in the border town of Birak, he said, but about 20 to 30 people need to be transported to a clinic further inside Chad. The Chadian government has resisted such a move because of concerns that refugees are fomenting unrest in the country.Darfur has been the site of the most expensive and complex humanitarian operation since the conflict there began in 2003.
Earlier this year the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs asked for $930 million to respond to the crisis, a large part of which goes toward supplying millions of people with food.Christiane Berthiaume, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program in Geneva, said Friday that 30 aid trucks have been stolen at gunpoint since the beginning of the year, and 18 local drivers have been kidnapped. Four trucks and their drivers have since been released. Contractors employed by the agency in Darfur are used to working in difficult conditions, "but now it's really getting very bad," she said.The agency said its staff -- like those of other organizations -- only travel outside major cities by helicopter for safety reasons, at a cost of some $1.9 million a month.
Also Friday, France's foreign minister said some 500 European soldiers have arrived in Chad as part of the EU peacekeeping mission to protect refugees from Darfur.The bulk of the 3,700-strong peacekeeping force, known as EUFOR, is expected to be flown in next month. A 150-member advance team arrived earlier, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters that Swedish and Polish troops are deploying.

A gang's staying power

A gang's staying power
Entrenched for years in Northeast L.A., the Avenues continues to defy the forces of law and gentrification.
By Joe Mozingo, Sam Quinones and Richard WintonLos Angeles Times Staff WritersFebruary 23, 2008

The young men who rule Drew Street have survived countless convictions, injunctions, evictions and deportations.Over the years, they have called themselves the Cypress Assassins, the Pee Wee Gangsters, the Brown Crowd Youngsters. They are as much clan as gang, deeply interconnected by family, with decades in their Glassell Park neighborhood. Police have tried to crush them for years, but for all the law enforcement rained upon the shabby two blocks of wrought-iron fences and stucco apartments, homeboys still command the street, as evidenced by the wild shootout Thursday in Northeast Los Angeles. The gun battle, which followed a drive-by attack near an elementary school, prompted police to shut down dozens of blocks, stranded thousands of residents and left two people dead.
The Drew Street crew is just one clique of the notorious Avenues gang that has tenaciously retained control over a wide swath of Northeast L.A., defying both the forces of gentrification and heavy crackdowns by police and federal agents.The gang, deriving its name from the avenues that cross Figueroa Street, took root in the 1950s and has wreaked havoc ever since. The insignia tattooed on many members' bodies speaks to their virulent history: a skull with a bullet hole, wearing a fedora.
The city attorney hit the Avenues with a gang injunction in 2002, making it illegal for known members to congregate or ride in cars together throughout much of Highland Park, Glassell Park, Cypress Park and Eagle Rock.And in 2006, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles won hate-crime convictions against five members for a murderous campaign to force African Americans out of their turf.
But even though the Avenues' presence in many neighborhoods has diminished in recent years -- currently, there are about 400 members -- it remains one of the most powerful gangs in the city. And it retains strong ties to the Mexican Mafia, known as the Eme -- a dominant force in California prisons."They are fully entrenched in the northeast community," said U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien, who led the hate-crime case and prosecuted members of the gang earlier in his career, as a deputy district attorney. "This is one of those older street gangs that are generational. You have youngsters who are 10 or 11 years old jumped in to the same gang claimed by their grandfathers."
The Drew Street clique is run by five interrelated families, police say. The layout of the small neighborhood -- cut off by San Fernando Road, backed up against Forest Lawn Memorial Park -- serves as a perfect redoubt.The area has long been a source of income for the Mexican Mafia, as Avenues members have taxed local drug dealers and paid a cut to the prison gang, according to Tony Raphael, author of "The Mexican Mafia." A prominent member of the Eme, Javier "Gangster" Marquez, grew up on Drew Street, and drugs from Mexico would land there before being distributed.
Raphael said a recent uptick in violence stems from a renewed push by the Avenues to collect taxes from smaller gangs in Cypress Park and Glassell Park. Police said the Thursday shootout began when gang members opened fire on 36-year-old Marcos Salas near Aragon Elementary School as he held the hand of his 2-year-old granddaughter. The girl was whisked away, but Salas later died. As the gunmen drove off, several people who apparently knew the victim started firing at them.
Minutes later, police converged on Drew Street, 10 blocks away. They pulled over a white Nissan sedan, and three men jumped out and opened fire, police said. The officers fired back, wounding one man and hitting another, who was wielding an AK-47.Daniel Leon, 22 -- a heavy in the Drew Street crew -- died on the asphalt he and his brothers ruled. The wounded man, Jose Angel Gomez, was taken to a hospital and is being held on suspicion of killing Salas. Another gunman, Guillermo Ocampo, was later caught by police and booked for investigation of murder. Police identified all three as members of the Avenues.
Leon was one of 13 children of Maria Leon, who lived at 3304 Drew St. until the city shut down the home last year with a narcotics abatement lawsuit. City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo called the home the gang's "mother ship." More than 40 arrests were made there in 2006, and the city attorney was attempting to ban Daniel Leon from the neighborhood before he was killed.His family is one of the five that control drug sales in the area, LAPD Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz and other sources said."This clique is bound by close family ties," said Diaz. "It goes back generations."Like hundreds of residents in the neighborhood, the Leons originally hailed from the village of Tlalchapa, in Guerrero, Mexico, neighbors said.That shared history breeds loyalty.
Several residents interviewed Friday said they supported the Avenues. "I've been here 25 years and they've never disrespected me," said Modesta Hernandez. "On the contrary, they protect us. They help us."They depicted the police as hostile and corrupt, and several said the shooting of Daniel Leon was unprovoked, although one neighbor said he clearly saw Leon raise the assault weapon at the officers.
Leon had a history of violence. He was arrested for killing a drug buyer at the house in 2004 and was ultimately convicted of being an accessory to murder. In 2005, he was arrested in a case in which prosecutors alleged "he brutally beat and robbed a 43-year-old man . . . as his wife looked on." The wife would not speak to prosecutors out of fear of retaliation.This fear is the continuing obstacle in authorities' attempts to break the gang's grip. Witnesses don't believe police will protect them. And gang members who flip on their brethren are instantly "green-lighted" -- marked for execution.David "Mousie" Cruz testified in 2001 against an Avenues member who was accused of taking part in the killings of two black men. Cruz was then deported to El Salvador, where he was stabbed 22 times in retaliation, but he survived.FBI Special Agent Jerry Fradella recalled trying to pressure the least culpable defendant in the hate-crime case to testify against his codefendants in exchange for leniency.
Fernando "Sneaky" Cazares was known to have been inside a van listening to a police scanner while other defendants carried out a killing outside. But he wouldn't betray them."He was loyal to the end," Fradella said. "And he got triple life just like the other guys."Compounding the problem, potential informants often cannot envision a life after snitching -- no longer safe in their neighborhoods, which are often all they know of the world. And in prison, they would have to be held in protective custody."They're just so unfamiliar with whatever else is out there, they want to stick to what they know," Fradella said.
The silence is unbearable for the victims' families. Luisa Prudhomme's son Anthony was shot twice in the head as he lay in bed in his apartment in Highland Park on Nov. 3, 2000. He had no gang affiliation and worked at a Pier 1.His slaying was part of the hate-crime case that led to the conviction of the five men. But the actual shooter is still at large. Police believe they know his identity, but no one will talk."I want the person who murdered my son to be brought to justice," Prudhomme said. "The guy who pulled the trigger. He used a pillow, but he must have gotten some of my son's blood on him. He knows what he did. God knows what he did."

joe.mozingo@latimes.com
sam.quinones@latimes.com
richard.winton@latimes.com

State fails wrongly convicted prisoners

State fails wrongly convicted prisoners
They face obstacles to getting rights restored, and compensation is inadequate, says a blue ribbon commission.
By Henry Weinstein
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

February 23, 2008

California does a bad job of compensating people wrongfully convicted in its courts, a blue ribbon commission said Friday. Men and women imprisoned for years, even decades, for crimes they didn't commit are offered fewer benefits than convicts released on parole, the commission said.

Exonerated prisoners "face many difficult obstacles to full restoration of their rights and liberties, and the compensation they receive for their losses is frequently inadequate," said the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, a state body chaired by former California Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp that has been studying the problem of wrongful convictions.

The commission, which includes prosecutors, defense lawyers, law professors and law enforcement officials, recommended a number of reforms, including giving wrongly convicted men and women state assistance in locating housing, a cash allowance, clothing and employment counseling. But the proposals would hardly open the floodgates. The compensation, "should be limited to those who have been found innocent of the crime or crimes for which they were convicted and imprisoned, not because of procedural errors in their trials," the panel said.

The commission also recommended that:

* Exonerated prisoners be permitted two years rather than six months to file compensation claims.

* The maximum compensation be increased from $36,500 to $50,000 for every year of incarceration.

* People who gave false confessions or forced guilty pleas be allowed to seek a court determination of factual innocence, the gateway to compensation.

* The deadline for a wrongfully convicted person to sue his trial lawyer for malpractice should be pushed back. The commission said the recent case of Peter Rose, who was wrongfully convicted of the kidnap and rape of a 13-year old girl in November 1995, demonstrates the need for this reform.

Rose's conviction was vacated in October 2004 after he was exonerated by DNA testing. He filed a complaint against his original defense lawyer, alleging that the lawyer's negligence contributed to his wrongful conviction. But the suit was dismissed because it was not filed within the statute of limitations, "even though the court conceded that he could not have recovered on his claim until his conviction had been vacated," the commission report said. Rose is one of 15 wrongfully convicted individuals who have been compensated by the state. The state has denied 25 claims and dismissed an additional 19 because they were untimely, incomplete or the claimant had not been released from prison.

Commissioners also recommended that the state resume funding for the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University Law School and the California Innocence Project at Cal Western Law School in San Diego, the primary legal groups in the state fighting to overturn wrongful convictions.

The Legislature in 2001 allocated $1.6 million over two years to provide lawyers to assist inmates with innocence claims. The legal assistance funding was eliminated in 2003 because of state budget cuts.

To date, the two Innocence Projects "have succeeded in helping to exonerate 11 people, two based on DNA evidence and nine on other grounds. Each exoneration has saved the state the cost of housing an innocent person," the commission said. The group also pointed out that the 1996 exoneration of Kevin Green, an Orange County man who spent more than 15 years in prison for the assault on his wife and murder of their unborn child, led to the conviction of the real murderer and rapist.

The report said the two Innocence Projects are now actively investigating 288 cases and have a backlog of 700 cases.

Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen, the executive director of the commission, said that Assemblymen Jose Solorio (D-Santa Ana), chairman of the Public Safety Committee, would introduce legislation embodying the reform proposals and others.

"We are very optimistic this package will make it through the Legislature and get the governor's signature," said Uelmen, noting that it has the full support of law enforcement.

henry.weinstein@latimes.com

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Officer saw his work as a calling

Officer saw his work as a calling
Randal Simmons' Christianity informed his life, both on and off the police force, colleagues say.
By Jill Leovy and Andrew BlanksteinLos Angeles Times Staff WritersFebruary 8, 2008

Patrolling Watts one day years ago, Los Angeles Police Capt. James Craig spotted a van in the street with a crowd of children gathered around.The van's occupant looked familiar. It was his former partner, Officer Randal Simmons, a rising star, in plain clothes and off-duty, doing what few other cops would do: He was trolling the same neighborhoods where he usually made arrests, looking for children to mentor as part of a church ministry. As Craig watched, he noticed that Simmons knew the children's first names, their personal struggles and their problems with gangs. It was a typical effort by an officer for whom police work was more than just a job.
The calling extended into the rest of his life -- from mentoring youth in South Los Angeles to charity efforts. "Passionate about the job and passionate about making a difference in the community" is how Craig described him. Simmons had been on the police force 27 years, 20 of them in SWAT, when he was mortally wounded early Thursday morning after he and other SWAT team members broke through the front door of a San Fernando Valley home where a gunman had killed family members. Police said they entered the home believing wounded people might be inside and others could be at risk of being shot and killed.
Simmons, 51, had tried as a young man for a career as a professional football player and was active in Police Department sports leagues, playing for the Centurions, the LAPD's football club, and running in charity races. "He was a very outgoing guy, always smiling, always a kind word for everyone," said LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck. On the job, the father of two -- a son, 15, and daughter, 13 -- stood out for his kindness and steady temperament. Simmons, originally from New York City, was the son of a minister, according to his former partner, retired LAPD Det. Gregory Grant. Simmons graduated from Fairfax High School in 1974, where he ran varsity track, Los Angeles Unified School District officials said.
He studied criminology at Washington State University, and wore No. 17 as a cornerback in 1976, 1977 and 1978. His final year, he was a varsity starter, according to the university's sports information office. Although Simmons was the strongest guy on the team, able to bench-press more than 400 pounds, his friend and college teammate Greg Sykes remembers with a laugh that Simmons "couldn't catch a ball to save his life." Teammates would joke that the ball would hit Simmons anywhere but his hands, Sykes said.
After college, Simmons was briefly a Dallas Cowboys hopeful, friends said. But his pro football dreams were cut short by an injury, and he turned to police work. In 1981, he was assigned as a probationary officer to the LAPD's Pacific Division, one of three African American probationers in the region at that time, Craig said.
Later, he worked in the South Bureau's gang squad, known then as CRASH. Grant said Simmons was a physically imposing officer -- "an Adonis" -- known for his superb physical fitness, for connecting with people and for maintaining his calm. Size alone was not the reason he had so few confrontations on the job. "We just talked to people. We had them laughing on the way to jail," Grant said. "He was really able to communicate with people -- able to extract information from unwilling people. He made them comfortable, and put humanity into it."When he encountered resistance, he appealed to people's sense of right and wrong, Grant said. Only the most pathological suspects did not respond, he said.
Simmons also worked as an officer in the LAPD's 77th Street Division, the high-crime precinct that covers Hyde Park and part of the Crenshaw area, and as a vice officer in the Southeast Division in Watts in the 1980s, Craig said. During that stint, Simmons was shot and suffered a minor injury, Craig said. When Simmons was promoted to SWAT, one of the department's most elite and highly coveted jobs, his calm negotiating style stood out in standoffs with suspects in high-pressure hostage situations.
Rick Massa, Simmons' longtime SWAT team partner and colleague, recalled Simmons' cool head under fire during a hostage negotiation in 1992. Officers were trying to rescue a maid held captive at an airport hotel by religious zealot Rollen Frederick Stewart, better known as Rainbow Man, for the multicolored wigs he wore at televised sporting events. Massa said he couldn't get through to Stewart, so he called on Simmons. Simmons chatted with Stewart for hours, dissecting the meaning of various biblical passages from morning through the evening, buying officers precious time to formulate a plan and rescue the hotel employee.
One of his assignments in SWAT was to be the contact person for charity efforts, including an annual toy drive at Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital south of downtown. He was "not only incredibly friendly, but really interested in being of service. You could tell," said Jeffrey Klein, former head of fundraising for Orthopaedic Hospital, now with Providence St. Joseph Medical Center.Simmons' Christian faith was central to his character. Friends recalled him gently prodding them to go to church, to "get right with God." He prodded them about health matters too, telling them to drink soy milk and offering workout pointers. At 51, said Det. Donald Payne, a football friend, he looked 31. "Some people defy time," he said.
Simmons was helping his church, Glory Christian Fellowship International in Carson, build a gymnasium, and would head straight for the facility after working out, Massa said.With the church's support, he worked off-hours mentoring youth in South Los Angeles, Craig said. His youth ministry absorbed his off-hours, said his SWAT partner of seven years, Officer James Hart, 48. On Sunday mornings, he picked up children from the Hacienda Village and Avalon Gardens housing developments, and drove them to services at Glory Christian. Hart recalled working crime-suppression patrols in the Avalon Gardens area. Simmons would ask, "James, you mind if I go check on my babies?" And they would drive over to visit some of the children he ministered to. "It was amazing, they would see him, and all these kids would just light up and yell, 'Randy! Randy!' "
Simmons excelled at making arrests, Hart said. On patrol, the two men were "like sharks," Hart said, observing, waiting -- homing in on a drug deal here, a stolen car there. They disagreed on some subjects -- Simmons' devotion to the Raiders, for instance -- but in action, they were in sync, communicating in their own secret code of Judo terms. In the gym, a few days ago, Hart recalled Simmons striding in wearing a blue beanie, white shirt and black high-tops with no socks.To his co-workers, he looked like a jailbird. And they were merciless. "I gotta suspect right here outta Folsom!" Hart announced. "Hey, what's your CDC number?" Simmons laughed and played along.
Hart was at home when he got the phone call summoning him to the hospital. Simmons was already dead. "He was just a beautiful personality. I never had a brother, an older brother, but he was truly my brother," Hart said. "Randy would say, even about this man who cost him his life, 'Pray for him.' " With 20 years on the job, he could have easily retired, colleagues said, but chose not to because he liked the work.At the same time, he was a devoted family man. His marriage, to Lisa, over some two decades impressed colleagues in a profession notorious for destroying relationships, Grant said.Grant recalled Simmons on his wedding day. The athletic, confident, muscular police officer had a whole different mien at the altar, he said. "He was trembling, tears running off his chin," Grant recalled. Simmons is survived by his wife, his two children, his parents and other family members.

jill.leovy@latimes.com
andrew.blankstein @latimes.com

Times staff writers Susannah Rosenblatt and Sam Farmer contributed to this report.


Trust Fund For Officer Randal Simmons

Trust funds have been established for LAPD SWAT Officers Randal Simmons through the Los Angeles Police Federal Credit Union (LAPFC). To make a donation, please go to: www.lapfcu.org and click on the red square titled "LAPFCU Community Corner." Donations may also be received by mail: LAPFCU Blue Ribbon Trust Fund/ Officer Randal Simmons Acct. 2030077-product code S4.12 16150 Sherman Way Van Nuys, CA 91410 (877) 695-2732 Contributions in their honor may also be made to: Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation www.lapmf.org (213) 847-4239

Friday, February 8, 2008

Unlimited space for untold sorrow

Unlimited space for untold sorrow

As a Times reporter's online list of each L.A. County homicide grew, overlooked patterns of race and place evoked anger and empathy.
By Jill Leovy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 4, 2008

This newspaper typically covers about 10% of the homicides in Los Angeles County each year. They are often the most sensational or shocking: a baby hit by a stray bullet, or a celebrity murder. But for the last year, the paper's website, latimes.com, has recorded every homicide. It was my idea. I reported on crime for the paper, and I wanted readers to see all the killings -- roughly 1,000 violent deaths each year, mostly of young Latinos and, most disproportionately, of young black men. The Web offered what the paper did not: unlimited space.
So the Homicide Report, as it was called, began with the simplest of journalistic missions: exposing a painful, largely unseen problem.The first list of homicide victims, published just over a year ago, contained the names of 17 people. Eight were Latino. Six were black. Two were of Cambodian descent -- killed in a double homicide. None were white. Most were in their 20s.Readers responded strongly. "Oh my God," began one of the first posts by a reader. "The sheer volume is shocking," wrote another. "Almost like they're disposable people," wrote a third.Two or three homicides occurred in the county per day, on average. As the report developed, I filled notebooks with police jargon, scrawling the same details over and over. "Male black adult" or "Male Hispanic" -- accompanied by addresses in Compton, Florence, Hawthorne, Boyle Heights or Watts.The coroner provided a basic list of victims. But much of the information about the killings had to be wrung from police agencies spread across 400 square miles, or from crime scenes or victims' families.
I worked mostly out of my car, fanning to the south and east of my office.Many agencies were not used to releasing details. One police press official was surprised to learn that victims' names were public information: No reporter had ever asked him for that, he said.When I first presented a list of victims to the state Department of Motor Vehicles for photos, the clerks were baffled. Twenty young people every week? "What is this?" one asked. "Did a plane crash?" One could know the numbers in the abstract yet still be unprepared for the sheer volume, similarity and obscurity of the victims. Los Angeles County's homicide rate was on the decline, and 2007 was destined to be one of the least violent years in a generation.
Yet the concentration of killings remained the same -- a pocket epidemic of violent death among black and Latino men in neglected corners of society.There was Manuel Perez, 17, whose homicide I chanced to hear mentioned in a detectives' staff meeting. As soon as I put his name on the site, a comment was posted: "I miss you so much, Manuel."There was Fernando Tello, 15, Latino, stabbed, who took a week to die at a hospital. Isaac Tobias, 23, black, had no DMV record. Valdine Brown, 28, also black, seemed to have disappeared altogether: The coroner had a record of his death in a hospital, but the detectives had never heard of him. Eventually it was revealed that Brown's killing was filed under one of his many aliases.
At a crime scene in the Los Angeles Police Department's Newton Division, lifelong friends of a victim said they knew him only by a nickname. At another scene, a family had no recent photographs of their 19-year-old son. For some of those victims, a police mug shot was the only record of their presence in the world. A detective in Watts once asked me to run a photo of an elaborate norteƱo-style belt buckle, the only clue to the identity of a victim whose body had been burned.Detectives routinely admitted that the names and ages they had recorded for victims were, at best, conjecture: Many victims, including illegal immigrants or career criminals, had lived entirely underground.Sweeping characterizations about homicides, so prevalent in media coverage and public discourse, fell apart.
A term such as "gang-related" had a dozen meanings. Once, three police officers, all working in the same division and all claiming personal knowledge, gave me three assessments of the same young man. One described him as a violent gang member; the second said he was a gang member who had committed no serious crimes; the third said he wasn't a gang member at all. Each death, however, limned ruined lives and ravaged communities."This is killing me," a slight woman named Althea Mizell sobbed during an interview in October. Her son, D'Angello Mizell, 36, had been killed a year before in the LAPD's 77th Street Division. He was a textbook unsympathetic victim, a gang member who had never been out of prison more than a year in his adult life.
Since the slaying, his mother talks to almost no one and rarely leaves her tiny apartment. She eats, sleeps and agonizes. Though a religious woman, she has reconciled herself to going to hell because she harbors so much anger, so much lust for revenge. It's worth it, she said.About her son, she has no denial. He is the failure she can't recover from. When the interview ended, she said: "Think of me sometimes."
In June, Vicky Lindsey, whose 19-year-old son was killed in 1995, helped organize a vigil for one of the more anonymous victims on the Homicide Report: Anthony Jenkins, 46, a black man killed by gunfire, whose relatives authorities were slow to locate. The organizers came together for a man who was a stranger to them because they too feel unseen."It is as if we are buried with our children," said Lindsey, who has a sticker on her car that reads: "My son was murdered."The vigil took place at dusk, at the place where Jenkins was shot. They lit candles and taped to a wall a printout of the Homicide Report chronicling Jenkins' death. Passersby watched, talking among themselves about murder, the police, the media."Ain't no one coming to help us 'cause they just say, 'They killin' each other,' " a man remarked.
A black man in a long brown Cadillac slowed down to look, then drove off. The group began to pray. A few minutes later the same Cadillac pulled up to the curb. The driver emerged, weeping. His 21-year-old son had been killed recently, he said."I went up the road and the tears just started and I couldn't keep going," he gasped.Memorial messages stacked up on the blog's comments section. They were often written in the form of a letter to the deceased, sometimes in Spanish, once in Armenian."Every night I dream about the different ways I could have said, 'Please don't go,' " wrote one victim's sister. "Where did you go? Why did they take you? What did they do to you? Why? Why?"
The more the killings stacked up on the blog, the more absurd the old media criteria for selecting one homicide over another seemed. Thirteen-year-old boys nearly always made the headlines of The Times' print edition, but 14-year-olds were a tossup. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds were more likely to make the cut if they were girls. In February, Joseph Watson, a 17-year-old black youth who was a running back on his high school football team, was slain in Athens. According to his parents and police, he had long fought to avoid being "jumped in" by his neighborhood gang. His killing attracted no media attention, other than on the Homicide Report. Swept under the same rug was Timothy Johnson, a 37-year-old black man, nicknamed "Sinister." His death in Watts in November closed another homicide investigation in which he was the primary suspect.
The March stabbing death of 17-year-old Alex Contreras-Rodriquez was big news because it happened on the campus of Washington High School, but two double homicides committed a few feet from school grounds were not. One of those happened in May. Two Latino men, each 23, were working on a gutter across the street from Elizabeth Street Elementary School in Cudahy while classes were in session. It was execution-style, a girl of 9 or 10 explained to me at the police tape. They had tried to run, leaving their ladders in place. One of the men had once been a documented gang member. But the day he died, he was working for hourly wages, wearing long sleeves to cover his tattoos.
Shortly after the killings, schoolchildren watched as the parents of one of the victims were led to the coroner's van to view his body. The father, an elderly Latino man in paint-spattered work boots, made it back to the car, then collapsed. The children behind the police tape stood motionless, their faces blank.Sheriff's Capt. Mike Ford vented his frustration to me about media coverage of homicide."Certain incidents capture the attention," he said. "But how do you value one life over another? You shouldn't."Media coverage matters.
In September, news broke that a 23-day-old baby had been killed by a stray bullet in the LAPD's Rampart Division. More than twice as many detectives were assigned to work that one case than to the division's 15 other 2007 homicide cases combined. Arrests were quickly made in the baby's killing. But as of January, some three-quarters of those other Rampart cases remained open. The Homicide Report made no distinction between a celebrity and a transient. Each got the same typeface, the same kind of write-up. If you were the victim of a homicide, you made the blog.
The report included the race of each victim. Newspapers traditionally do not identify homicide victims by race. But failing to include race also served to disguise the disproportionate effect homicide has on blacks and Latinos. I had met many people -- most of them black -- who had been bereaved not once, but twice -- and, in a couple cases, three times -- by the slaying of an immediate family member. Giving readers anything short of a full and accurate picture of this surfeit of bereavement seemed indecent.
Some readers, though, were critical. The practice "just feeds into stereotyping of minorities," one wrote. The blog's readership slowly grew. The death of "Sinister" drew more than 100 emotional posts at the end of the year as readers segued from grief and anger into an impassioned debate about race and murder.Police agencies gradually grew more cooperative. A sheriff's deputy who throughout the year had been exceptionally helpful sent an e-mail in December praising the effort. He closed: " My younger brother was murdered . . ."In December, The Times asked me to turn the blog over to a colleague, Ruben Vives, and move on to other things.
The Homicide Report has been a humbling experience. None of the more ambitious stories I'd previously done for the paper seemed quite as effective as simply listing victims, one by one by one. The Homicide Report did not seek to distill its subject into a digestible shape or explore some angle of an issue to help people understand it.It was just about facts, about reporting homicides -- 845 of them recorded so far for 2007 -- in a straightforward, comprehensive way. One reader complained that the project had provided no depth, no explanation, of the problem it revealed. So many slayings documented, yet still "I don't understand it," he wrote.
Maybe, in sum, the report has merely skimmed a problem whose true depths couldn't be conveyed. And in anintimate sense,too, the coverage nearly always felt inadequate.The same month as the Anthony Jenkins vigil, I congratulated myself for finding time to look for the family of 21-year-old Richard Mitchell, a black man who died on the operating table 10 days after he was shot. The family had left town to bury him. A neighbor answered questions with a strange weariness.At last, she explained: "My son was killed too." He was 15 and black. It was an unrelated homicide, a year prior. A pause as she regarded me, reproach in her eyes. She was surprised to see me, she said. No reporter had come to ask about her son.

jill.leovy@latimes.com

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Bush’s Empty Words on Two Troubled Nations

January 31, 2008, 7:10 pm
Bush’s Empty Words on Two Troubled Nations
The New York Times Editorial Board


Words are cheap. And never cheaper than when humanitarian tragedies are invoked in speeches for dramatic effect or out of a perfunctory sense of obligation with no effective followup.
That looked to be the case when President Bush mentioned Sudan and Myanmar (Burma) — fleetingly — in his uninspiring State of the Union address on Monday night.
“America opposes genocide in Sudan,” Mr. Bush declared as the assembled Senators and Congressmen applauded.
Mr. Bush also drew applause when he asserted support for freedom in Burma. We’re glad both tragedies are still on Mr. Bush’s radar. But mentioning them served only to remind us how much is left undone.
Let’s look at the facts. The United States first called the killings in Darfur genocide in 2004 when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “We concluded — I concluded — that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed (militia) bear responsibility — and genocide may still be occurring.”
That was a big deal. Washington doesn’t throw the term “genocide” around lightly. It is reserved only for the most heinous and widespread atrocities like the Holocaust. Good for Mr. Bush for reaffirming that determination for Darfur.
But how will he end the conflict? What does the United States do now? The genocide determination imposes a moral obligation on those who make the accusation. As a signatory of the 1948 Genocide Convention, the United States is committed to preventing and punishing genocide.
After five years of conflict, more than 200,000 Darfuris are dead and two and a half million have been driven from their homes. Still,the killing continues despite endless speeches, United Nations Security Council resolutions and — at long last — a security council decision to mount the largest international peacekeeper force ever authorized.
Unfortunately, only about a tenth of the promised additional peacekeepers are in place and much of the needed equipment has not arrived. Sudan’s government is a major obstacle, but the world community has not done all it can or should to stand up to Khartoum. Mr. Bush’s comments, however welcome a reminder of the problem, didn’t begin to address a way forward.
As for Myanmar, insiders say Mr. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush are deeply concerned about the country’s pro-democracy activists after a crackdown by the military junta last August, and senior administration officials continue to have daily conversations and weekly meetings about how to encourage the junta into some sort of transition from military rule.
But expectations that last August’s protests led by Buddhist monks could end the junta’s domination have long since faded and there is division and confusion over what more the United States and its allies could do to push the process along. The junta has delayed a return of United Nations special envoy Ibrahmi Gambari, who is working on political reconciliation but is increasingly viewed in the West as ineffectual.
And many countries appear to have lost enthusiasm for challenging the junta, either because they are eager for contracts with Myanmar involving resources like oil and gems, or they fear creating instability in the region. (China, India and the Southeast Asian nations are key, but Europe and America also have commercial interests there.)
Still, the crackdown continues. On Tuesday, the junta charged 10 activists detained during last year’s protests and they could face up to seven years in prison. Amnesty International said recently that 700 people arrested after those demonstrations remained locked up and more than 80 were unaccounted for.
So when Mr. Bush says the United States supports freedom in Burma, that’s all well and good. But the same question must be asked as with Darfur: What’s next?

Kenya Death Toll Surpasses 1,000

Kenya Death Toll Surpasses 1,000
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
NAIROBI, Kenya

The death toll in Kenya surpassed 1,000 people on Tuesday as negotiations to end the country’s violent political crisis entered a critical stage.
According to the Red Cross, most of the killings have been in the turbulent Rift Valley, where gangs from opposing ethnic groups have fought fiercely in the past few days.
“It’s a very volatile situation out there,” said Anthony Mwangi, a spokesman for the Kenya Red Cross.
Mr. Mwangi said that more than 300,000 people had been driven from their homes and the continuing insecurity, especially in the countryside, was slowing down the delivery of food, water and tents. On Tuesday, officials from the government and Kenya’s top opposition party began specific discussions about how to address the political crisis. Both sides have so far refused to budge, claiming they won the election in December.
Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, is mediating the talks. Solutions could include a power-sharing arrangement between the government and the opposition; a transitional government to serve until a new election is held; or an audit of the election results.
Mr. Annan is also pushing for a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the explosion of violence that has convulsed Kenya, which up until recently was viewed as one of the most stable and promising countries on the African continent.
On Tuesday, Mr. Annan met with Kenya’s top business leaders who pleaded with him to speed up the negotiations because the country’s economy has been devastated by the violence.
As the violence has intensified, roadblocks manned by young men armed with machetes and bows and arrows have popped up across the country. In many places, the rowdy youth act like toll booths, extracting payment before lifting barriers to allow vehicles to pass.
Kenya descended into turmoil after the deeply flawed election in December. The country’s electoral commission declared that the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, had narrowly beaten the top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, but election observers have said there was widespread evidence of vote rigging.
The dispute uncorked decades of frustration about political, economic and land issues, pitting opposition supporters against members of the president’s ethnic group and against other groups perceived to support the government. Much of the violence has taken on an ethnic flavor, though many participants insist their motives are political.
Kenya’s billion-dollar-a-year tourism industry has been brought to its knees, with game parks and beach hotels deserted. Agriculture has also been hard hit because the insecurity in the Rift Valley has blocked the flow of produce and commodities like tea and office. The stock market is down roughly 25 percent in dollar terms and business leaders estimate the economy has already lost several billion dollars.

Peace Agreements fails to halt Kenya Violence

Peace agreement fails to halt Kenya violence
From the Associated Press
February 3, 2008

ELDORET, KENYA -- Young men from rival ethnic groups hunted one another through the streets of a western Kenyan town Saturday, burning houses and blocking roads a day after the country's political foes agreed to try to end weeks of violence over a disputed election.Both men who signed the deal were still talking tough. President Mwai Kibaki accused his opponents of orchestrating the violence, and Raila Odinga, the opposition leader who says the presidency was stolen from him, said Kibaki's "aggressive statements" were undermining efforts to quell the fighting.

With the two sides trading blame, the fighting continued unabated. Members of Kenya's many tribes were going after people from rival groups.A Pentecostal church in the western town of Eldoret was burned overnight, and only smoldering ruins were left by daybreak. The pastor's nephew, Peter Ndungu, said the church was burned because his aunt is from Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.Terrified Kenyans continued to pour into camps for the displaced."It's unpredictable," said Joseph Njoroge, 28, a Kikuyu, as he strained to push a cart piled high with furniture along a road lined by burned-out homes and businesse. Men armed with bows and arrows had come to his house, threatening to kill him in anger over the slaying of an opposition lawmaker Thursday. Police say the killing was tied to a love triangle, but opposition supporters say it was political.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Ontario opens arms to homeless

Ontario opens arms to homeless
By David KellyLos Angeles Times Staff WriterFebruary 3,

At an enclave near the airport, people can get shelter, food and some social services. Many churches are helping.2008Over the last six months, more than 250 homeless people have pitched tents near the Ontario airport, creating a burgeoning shantytown that sprawls across vacant lots and spills into side streets. They call it Tent City, and for many it's a welcome refuge from the cars, bridges and offramps they usually inhabit.

"This place is the best thing they could do for us," said Teresa Pacheco, 48, of Upland. "It's got food, water and there is an outhouse."For others, it's a nightmare."I hate it here. I want a house. I want a life," said a tearful Teresa Dodson, 54. "I've never been in this position before in my entire life."Pregnant women, parolees, alcoholics, the mentally ill, people fallen on hard times: They're all here, living on donated food and water. And rather than running them out, the city has invited them in.

Unlike many communities that hide or deny such problems, Ontario has put its homeless on public display. The city makes sure trash is picked up. Police patrol the area. Portable toilets have been set up and clean water and showers are provided. Social workers try to place residents in shelters and get help for those with drug or alcohol problems. "I have done this kind of work for 20 years and have never encountered a city that has made the investment that Ontario has," said Larry Haynes, executive director of Mercy House in Santa Ana, which is helping the homeless at the site. "We have unanimous support from the City Council and city staffers. This isn't Berkeley or Santa Monica. It's a moderately conservative area, not a bunch of wild-eyed liberals."

Ontario officials don't call the place Tent City or Camp Hope as some do. They prefer "rest area." They set it up on city property just west of LA/Ontario International Airport last June to lure the local homeless away from dangerous sites."They were living along the railroad tracks, along the 10 Freeway at the major intersections," said Brent Schultz, director of the city's office of housing and neighborhood revitalization. "We said, 'You don't have to go, but we have created a place where you can go.' It's not a permanent solution. We are trying to keep a lid on it, but we are not putting our head in the sand. We are reaching out to people."Ontario is spending $3 million to deal with its homeless.

As of 2007, that population numbered 331, the second highest in San Bernardino County, said Isaac Jackson, the county's homeless services coordinator. The city of San Bernardino ranks first with 1,397. Tent City started with about 30 people. It grew fast to between 250 and 300 from all over the region. And there is increasing concern that it could be getting out of control."I worry how it has expanded, from a standpoint of safety and resources," said City Councilman Jason Anderson. "It needs to be regulated. It's taken on a life of its own. I envision the city throttling it back to the point where it was originally envisioned, as a resource for the local homeless community."But there are no plans to close it, he said: "You can't just flip a switch and shut it down."At least not anymore.

Tents now cover several large dirt lots on both sides of Cucamonga Avenue. Side streets are lined with battered vans and recreational vehicles. Dogs run wild. A 6-month-old was recently found living in a tent with his mother. Authorities said they would provide better shelter for all mothers with children they find. Police say there has been one assault, but little other crime has been reported. They have intercepted gang members they say were casing the place in order to extort money from the homeless. And they say they know that parolees had been dropped off at the site."We spoke with parole and that has stopped," said Ontario Police Sgt. Bryan Allen, who recently supervised a cleanup operation in the area.

"We get folks who come here to gawk, and a few have even brought their children down to play. This isn't a place for kids. Many of these folks are mentally ill. There are a ton of airborne illnesses."First-time visitors are often shocked by the sea of flapping tents with residential homes barely a block away."My first impression was shame on America," said Beverly Earl, director of community and emergency services for the region's Catholic Charities organization. "But you have a lot of people here who are just caught in bad circumstances. They now feel part of a community."Residents live in donated tents with mattresses. They light fires in barrels or grills to stay warm. High winds can topple the portable toilets, spilling their contents. Inside one, someone scrawled "God Hates Us All" in black marker.

People freely admit addictions, arrest records and mental illness. Their life stories are harrowing.Marty Tovar, 53, yanked all the hair from his head -- "to change my look," he said. His nose is scarred from a recent attack by teenagers, his elbow dented from crashing through a car window. His knees barely function and a hip has been broken."My kidneys are good, though," he said on a recent afternoon.Jets landing at the airport thundered just a few hundred feet above him. "And I got a good nose too," he said. "I can really take a beating."Dodson walked past. She said her boyfriend kicked her out of the house. She drinks "to relieve the tension" and feeds the birds gathered outside her tent."I am grateful for all the help people have given us," she said. "But I get very depressed here."Gina Worges is 47 and five months pregnant. She hopes her baby is fine but said she really has no idea: "The veterinarians have spayed and neutered the dogs out here, but I haven't seen any doctors for the people."Her tent smells of mildew, her mattress soaked from the recent rain. She and her daughter Nancy McAbee said they were evicted from their Fontana home when a roommate failed to pay a portion of the rent.McAbee, who is partly deaf, arrived at the encampment nine months pregnant.

On Friday, her water broke and she was taken to a hospital. A day earlier, she had said she planned to put the baby up for adoption."I prefer the baby be in a house than in this place," she said, lighting a cigarette. Across the street, past a circle of scowling men drinking malt liquor, Danielle Rivera swiveled on an old office chair, its wheels firmly mired in mud. Her 6-month-old son,Daniel, smiled in a stroller beside her."I'm trying to get my son off the street," said Rivera, 20, of Ontario. "He's been a real trouper, but I'm hating it. I'm used to being indoors."A high-strung parolee who identified himself only as "Mississippi" tried to start a fire at Rivera's tent site. He borrowed pieces of notebook paper to use as kindling."The parole officer left me here," he said. "The police said I committed assault with intent to commit great bodily harm, but I was just trying to break up a fight."Rivera and her mother, Pam, said they ended up homeless after being evicted. They watched as Mississippi's anemic fire struggled to burn. It was cold, and the skies threatened more rain."We need this place. Otherwise we'd be on skid row," said Pam Rivera.A fight broke out nearby, one woman screaming obscenities at another.
"Hey!" bellowed the elder Rivera. "There are children around here, and if they start talking like that, I'm coming over there!"

Tent City may be ugly, but plenty of people want to help those inside. More than 30 churches serve lunch and dinner almost every day and donate tents, tarps and clothing. Catholic Charities hands out water and blankets. Mercy House has opened an emergency walk-in center."People who want to help are coming out of the woodwork," said Wendy Francisco, director of Camp Hope Ministry for Flipside Church in Rancho Cucamonga. "This is the leper colony outside the city walls. I know Jesus would be out there. That's where he was, among the poor and lowly."Not every person in Tent City is mentally ill or chemically addicted.

Some fell on hard times with no safety net.Damaris Rodriguez, 45, lost her inventory job when the company went bankrupt. Her last paycheck was $160 and her rent was $300. She was evicted, then lost her car. "The whole thing was a domino effect, and I ended up here," she said. "Everyone has a different breaking point. For me, this is rock bottom."Her tent is neat inside, with canned food stacked beside a mattress sitting on a shag carpet. She dug a ditch out front to drain away the water and wears slippers turned black with mud."My boyfriend thinks I'm high-maintenance because I'm not out collecting cans and bottles in the dumpsters," she said. "But I'm not going to give up my standards. It's easy to say, 'This will never happen to me.' I said that once and look at me. Never say never."

david.kelly@latimes.com

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Religious leaders join hands to take on worldwide woes

Religious leaders join hands to take on worldwide woes
By K. Connie Kang, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 2, 2008

Christians, Jews and a Muslim from the Los Angeles area who went on a study trip to Rome, the Vatican and Jerusalem say they have to work together to fight hunger, disease and violence.


Religious leaders should lead the way in solving the world's persistent problems, such as hunger, disease and violence, by reaching out to -- and working with -- people of other faiths, Los Angeles area Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders say."It is increasingly clear to some of us that the world's problems can't be solved simply politically," said the Rev. Jerry Campbell, president of Claremont School of Theology, after returning this week from a nine-day study trip to Rome, the Vatican and Jerusalem. Campbell traveled as a member of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders, and the trip was designed to promote understanding and appreciation of the complexity of the Middle East. It was the second such trip for the council and was co-sponsored by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Board of Rabbis of Southern California."It's not about converting or changing one another," Campbell said. "It's about a dialogue -- conversation and common efforts on the problems we all agree are shameful."

Campbell expressed the hope that Los Angeles -- a microcosm of global diversity -- would become a "model city for the world," where people of faith would serve humanity with "love and respect" for each other's viewpoints .He and several members of the delegation -- priests, rabbis, pastors and lay leaders -- said meetings with an array of experts working on peace, interreligious issues and the mission of the religious institutions had renewed their hope. But the discussions have also reminded them of the challenge of handling those within their faith traditions who oppose interreligious collaboration, they said.

"Sometimes there is more conflict and difficulty living with each other within your religious group than . . . relating to each other in the other religious groups," said Pasadena-based Bishop Mary Ann Swenson, who oversees 390 United Methodist congregations in Southern California, Hawaii, Guam and Saipan.The bishop noted with joy how naturally the diverse group of Catholics, Protestants, Jews and a Muslim became a community. "It was very, very special," she said.Nur Amersi, the lone Muslim in the delegation, said the group's effort is an example of what is possible. "We became a family," said Amersi, executive director of the Afghanistan World Foundation's Los Angeles office. A highlight in the Vatican was the papal audience, described as "part prayer service, part pep rally and part religious rock concert" by Rabbi Mark Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, who was co-leader of the delegation with Bishop Edward Clark, of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.While thousands waited for 90 minutes to see Pope Benedict XVI, strangers greeted those around them, their "voices and laughter" filling the air, Campbell recalled.After the pontiff's homily on the "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity," special visitors, including the Los Angeles delegation, were recognized. Young people cheered, "nuns waved colorful scarves, the band played, and a couple from South America sang a hauntingly beautiful a cappella rendition of 'Ave Maria,' " Campbell said.

After blessing the gathered in six languages, the pope walked down from the stage to greet the leaders from Los Angeles. Campbell said he felt that the pope's message and welcome had affirmed the delegation's "interfaith agenda."Swenson said Benedict's homily connected with her because she had been praying the very verse that the pope quoted, "Pray without ceasing," from 1 Thessalonians.Amersi's encounter with the Vatican opened her to a deeper understanding, respect and acceptance of Christianity. Swenson described private sessions with officials in Rome and Jerusalem as "deep and intense." The group met with three cardinals, including Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue.

In Israel, the delegation met with a cross-section of political, religious, social welfare and new media leaders."The trip reinforced for all of us the nuances and complexities of . . . age-old problems," Diamond said. "We all have a stronger grasp of some of the issues that we face." The Rt. Rev. Alexei Smith, of the Archdiocese of L.A., said interfaith leaders have their work cut out for them."This wonderful experience has to filter down to the man and woman in the pew -- and that means everyone -- most particularly those who are not in favor of this type of activity," he said.But how?"By our example they might be led to see that this is the way to do things," Smith said.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Random violence kills a man who saved lives

Random violence kills a man who saved lives
L.A. police have a suspect, but they have no idea why anyone would have killed Christopher O'Leary.By Molly Hennessy-FiskeLos Angeles Times Staff Writer February 1, 2008

The day he died, Christopher O'Leary, 34, awoke as usual, prepared to save lives.It is difficult to find meaning in death, particularly when the victim is young and responsible, as O'Leary was, cut down in the middle of the day at the height of a selfless career. Since his death, O'Leary's loved ones and colleagues have been retracing his final hours, compelled to look for an explanation, a pattern. Even Thursday, after police announced the arrest of a 17-year-old in connection with the killing, little seems to add up.

Los Angeles Police Det. P.J. Morris said police were still investigating what appears to have been a random killing. The youth, whose name was not released because of his age, had moved to Highland Park from Henderson, Nev., a week ago and did not know O'Leary.

It was O'Leary's job to track and help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among some of the area's most at-risk people, including Spanish-speaking immigrants, low-income black women and gay men.O'Leary was a rising star in his field and an idol to his younger sister and brother. The Sacramento native had won a full scholarship to UCLA, where he graduated summa cum laude, and another full scholarship to the University of Michigan, where he earned a doctorate in anthropology.The day he died, Jan. 20, O'Leary rose at his northeast L.A. home about 9 a.m. full of nervous energy. A behavioral scientist with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, he had been scheduled to leave the next day for a conference at UC San Francisco. He would have been a featured speaker.
A lean 6 feet tall with blond hair and bright green eyes, O'Leary was a runner who exercised daily. So to relax that morning, he put on some Bobby Darin swing music and grabbed his wife, Michele Rose O'Leary, to dance.O'Leary met Michele Rose, 35, a petite brunet psychotherapist, during graduate school. She compared herself to former "American Idol" winner Kelly Clarkson -- very girl-next-door. But O'Leary saw her as a glamour girl, his own Charlize Theron.As Darin crooned, O'Leary spun his wife across the floor:And if this band don't desert me, then there's nothing in the world can hurt me, long as I'm singing my song.Afterward, he was happy yet still nervous.
So he went to the market for ingredients and cooked his "gnarly breakfast": fried eggs, seasoned potatoes and a Bloody Mary on the side. But he was still on edge. Around noon, O'Leary asked his wife for cash to indulge in another guilty pleasure: a cigarette. The couple smoked only occasionally, never in the house, which they bought three months ago and shared with their dogs Flor, a terrier mix, and Spike, a Chihuahua.Michele grinned at her husband, noticing as she prepared to leave for the gym that he was still wearing her University of Michigan sweat shirt. On her way out, she handed him $5.50.

Some time after noon, O'Leary left the house, not bothering to take his wallet or wedding band, waved to a neighbor and shouted in Spanish -- one of four languages he spoke -- that he was "going to be bad."He bought some cigarettes and walked to a building on Lincoln Avenue, a place where neighborhood kids wouldn't see him setting a bad example by lighting up. Meanwhile, his wife, halfway to the Glendale gym, changed her mind and headed home.

As she crossed Lincoln, she noticed a parked ambulance and thought she saw paramedics treating a homeless man who had collapsed. Then she saw her University of Michigan sweat shirt.It looked, she said, as if her husband were having a seizure. O'Leary had been shot in the upper body. Witnesses had called to report the shooting about 12:55 p.m., but the only description of the suspect was a man wearing a gray sweat shirt. O'Leary was unable to speak.Paramedics rushed him to Huntington Hospital in Pasadena.

By about 9 p.m., he was brain dead. Shortly after that, O'Leary's parents, who had planned to meet him in San Francisco for lunch, arrived at his bedside.On Saturday, friends plan to gather at 1 p.m. around an altar built in O'Leary's memory at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where he often celebrated the Day of the Dead.Nothing was taken, so the attack does not appear to have been a robbery, said Los Angeles Police Det. Larry Burcher. He said there are no signs O'Leary was involved in criminal activity -- "nothing in his life that would have led to this."

Morris said police have several pieces of evidence tying the teenager to the shooting but declined to provide specifics or say whether they recovered a gun. He was arrested about 2 p.m. Wednesday and is being held at Eastlake Juvenile Justice Center. He had not yet registered for school, Morris said, and had no local criminal record."It's one of the very rare acts of random violence that I've come across," said Burcher, a 17-year LAPD veteran.

O'Leary's supervisor, Jorge Montoya, misses the world traveler who used to brew their morning mate tea, who "debated everything from whether Blondie was punk or rock to the appropriate way to do qualitative research."Montoya reviewed the events that preceded O'Leary's death, but no analysis could make sense of it.Neither can family friend Richard Kovacik."This couldn't make less sense as far as when it happened, where it happened, to whom it happened," he said."How could this have happened to him?" another friend e-mailed O'Leary's family. "Why do things like this happen at all?" It's an eternal question. What is known in Christopher O'Leary's case is that at the hospital Jan. 20, even after his family had said their goodbyes and he had been pronounced dead, O'Leary continued to give to others.He was an organ donor. Doctors estimate that his gift will help nine to 20 people.

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com