A CITY AT WAR

The article in the LA Times detailed the murder of one more young man in South Los Angeles. So why did this catch anyone's attention? Like many others, he was an innocent -- who committed the grievous and fatal error of occupying a slice of sidewalk deemed by the demented killers to be their sole and separate property. Obviously a capital crime in the ‘hood but hey, who gives a flying fuck what happens down there. Saves us the price of room and board at the Hotel San Quentin or having the bother of sticking ‘em with the big needle later.

This fourteen year old child was pedaling his bicycle in broad daylight, pedaling his bicycle toward home, pedaling his bicycle when three gangbangers jumped out of a car and shot him off that bike. Where was his savior as he pulled his shattered body to his knees, clasped his hands and begged for his life? Did his mother’s face flash before him as he cried to the heavenly jury and the faces of evil pumped nineteen bullets into him?

This city is divided by the 10 Freeway into two real worlds -- divided not only geographically, but economically and socially. The lives of the haves and the have-nots seldom cross. South Los Angeles is mired in civil war, pitting brother against brother.

This is a bloody battlefield with daily American victims as numerous as that other fighting ground tearing us apart. But there are no candidates debating our involvement, there are no screaming marches calling for negotiation and great armies to halt the mayhem, there are no folded flags and tears of a grateful nation for these mothers’ fallen sons.

True, our governing bodies have recently approved easier access to AK47s, their weapons of choice. If these guys want to go around killing each other, let them do with better equipment than we’re sending to Iraq. We want overkill, so they won’t be crowding our county emergency rooms costing us taxpayers a huge fortune. In fact our city’s bloody wounds so mirror that of officially declared wars that our military trains their medics in the bleeding hallways of its hospitals.

This is the wrong war. In the wrong place. Can we just imagine the reaction if young people were dying on the streets of Brentwood or Santa Monica?

Twenty years ago Westwood Village was the entertainment center of Los Angeles. With its myriad theaters and restaurants, legions of our populace thronged into the Village every weekend to savor its offerings.

One bullet, killing a Westsider caught in the crossfire of two gangbangers, turned Westwood into a ghost town overnight.

Where is the outrage now?