Los Angeles Times- A 14-year-old aspiring football player. A 19-year-old high school graduate just getting his start in life. A 77-year-old woman and her 58-year-old daughter inside their home. A 79-year-old woman standing outside her car.
On Friday morning, Los Angeles police officials cited these and other recent South L.A. shootings as they joined elected officials, community leaders, gang interventionists and local clergy to denounce the violence — which spiked this summer and surged this week — and ask for the community’s help addressing it.
Although the LAPD’s South Bureau covers just 12% of the city, it has experienced 39% of L.A.'s homicides this year and 45% of its shootings, police officials said. Just since Sunday, the region has seen four people killed, 19 wounded by gunfire and 11 others narrowly escape injury after being fired upon.
“It’s not just the gang members shooting each other, it’s the innocent victims that are in the crosswalk,” said South L.A. Deputy Chief Regina Scott, a mother and grandmother whose family lives in the area. “The police department cannot do this alone. We cannot arrest our way out of this. This takes a wholistic approach.”