Surenos kill another innocent black kid

[VALERO]

Star L.A. athlete couldn't outrun gangs
Jamiel Shaw Jr. , 17, was shot and killed near his home Sunday evening. He had been named Most Valuable Player by Los Angeles High School.
Football player's dreams die in a flurry of bullets in South L.A.
By Paloma Esquivel, Paul Pringle and Francisco Vara-Orta, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
March 4, 2008

Stanford University called about Jamiel Shaw a week or so ago, intrigued by the slight but speedy running back for Los Angeles High School, the Southern League's most valuable player last year. Rutgers University called a few days later.

The Shaw family already had reason to be proud. Jamiel's mother, Army Sgt. Anita Shaw, was on her second tour of duty in Iraq.

On Sunday night, it was Jamiel's father on the phone and then his son's girlfriend, Chrystale Miles. Jamiel Sr. called to tell him to hurry home from the mall. The 17-year-old boy was three doors away when someone shot him to death while he was still talking on his cellphone to Chrystale, friends say.

Jamiel Sr. heard the shots almost as soon as he hung up. He ran out of the house, raced around the corner and found his son lying on the sidewalk, bleeding.

"She's over there trying to protect us from guns and bombs, and then she has to hear that her son is dead over here," he said of Anita on Monday. "I've got my own personal Iraq now."

Los Angeles police officials described the killing as random and senseless, cutting down a youth who had been doing everything right in his life -- from hitting the books to never missing church to inspiring the Los Angeles High Romans to last year's Southern League title.

A police spokeswoman said two Latino men pulled up in a car, jumped out, asked Jamiel if he belonged to a gang, and shot him when he didn't answer. She said Jamiel was not affiliated with a gang and that detectives had no suspects.

Anita Shaw was flying back from Iraq on Monday, family members said.

"She called crying, saying, 'Tell me it's not my son,' " said Jamiel's aunt, Althea Shaw. "She was so proud. She felt he had made it through the hard times. She still called him her baby, even though he was taller than her."

Jamiel Sr. said he had "an 18-year plan" for their son, whose ultimate goal was to become a sports agent: "I would tell him, 'I'm going to get you to 18, and if you do what you're supposed to do, you'll get to college,' " the father recalled. "He was almost there."

The youth's football coach, Hardy Williams, was with the family Monday at their 5th Avenue home, where Jamiel's trophies and medals lined the mantel. His 9-year-old brother, Thomas, wore Jamiel's favorite Atlanta Braves cap. Tears flowed.

"He was a very special kid," Williams said. "Not only was he an outstanding athlete, he was a good person. I've never seen Jamiel mad. He had such a big smile."

The coach described his standout player as "a Houdini on the football field," and the numbers backed it up. As a junior, Jamiel rushed for more than 1,000 yards last year, averaging just over 14 yards per carry. An invitational All-City first-team selection, he scored 11 touchdowns, returned punts and kickoffs, and played defensive back. He also competed in track.

Hours before he was shot, Jamiel had spent the day at a football camp at Pasadena City College, Williams said.

"Stanford just called me about his transcripts," he said. "Rutgers called a couple of days ago. He was just on track. . . . He was very elated."

Jamiel's teammates called him the "the spirit of the team."

"I went through most of today thinking it was all a joke," Colletti Scorza, an 18-year-old junior, said of his death. "I thought he'd make it to college on a football scholarship and then be in the NFL someday. . . .

"I don't know how we're going to fill the void on the team and as our friend."

Scorza and another teammate, Rayvione Mouton, 16, had hung out with Jamiel on Friday.

"I remember I told him, 'I'll see you Monday!' " Rayvione said. "But now I know I won't ever see him again."

The two students said gang violence is less common in Jamiel's neighborhood than in areas south and east of L.A. High. They also said there had been no tensions between blacks and Latinos. Jamiel was black.

Chrystale's brother, Romans defensive end Willie Miles, said she was not up to speaking late Monday. He said she told him she was talking to Jamiel on his cellphone when she heard the car pull up and someone ask him "where he was from," code for which gang he belonged to.

Miles said his sister heard what she later realized was gunfire.

"It was like a long gust of wind," he said. "The phone went dead after that."

On the sidewalk where Jamiel fell, mourners created a memorial of blue and white candles and flowers, L.A. High's colors.

Jamiel Sr. recalled the horror of seeing his son down on the pavement, and said that his boy had never missed a game because of an injury.

"When he went on the field, he never came out," the father said. "He'd never been hurt. This is the first time I saw him hurt."

[necio]

[quote="VALERO"]."


A police spokeswoman said two Latino men pulled up in a car, jumped out, asked Jamiel if he belonged to a gang, and shot him when he didn't answer. quote]

that part has me doubting that the kid was innocent, and of course the parents are gonna say that the had a good kid

[yo foo]

Man, that kid was innocent. Shit, jealous motherfuckers didn't let this kid leave the hood. He had somthing going for him. He was about to leave the hood to go to a college like Stanford or Rutgers, but those low-lifes that killed him didn't allow him too.

I've been living down in Southern Cali since January, and this brown on black violence is rediculous. I'm watching the news now, and a little kid got shot in the head be latino gang members that opened fire on a SUV filled with a black family.

[VALERO]

Man, that kid was innocent. Shit, jealous motherfuckers didn't let this kid leave the hood. He had somthing going for him. He was about to leave the hood to go to a college like Stanford or Rutgers, but those low-lifes that killed him didn't allow him too.

I've been living down in Southern Cali since January, and this brown on black violence is rediculous. I'm watching the news now, and a little kid got shot in the head be latino gang members that opened fire on a SUV filled with a black family.

Hey Yo Foo, I just saw the story you were referring to about the little black kid getting shot by some Surenos on the LA Times website-he's only 6 years old. I just posted the LA Times article on the L.A. Area News board. For your info, it was in Harbor Gateway, though it wasn't committed by 204th Street, but rather East Side Torrance. Oh yeah, his pregnant mom was inside the SUV while the Surenos were shooting at the whole family.

[61deuce]

Man, that kid was innocent. Shit, jealous motherfuckers didn't let this kid leave the hood. He had somthing going for him. He was about to leave the hood to go to a college like Stanford or Rutgers, but those low-lifes that killed him didn't allow him too.

Yea, seem like a bright future for him but it was cut short by some trigger-happy mofo.

[junta]

If these black gangs out here were smart, they would do their research and study where these Surenos hang out (I mean the actual streets, neighborhoods, zip codes, etc.) and start spraying they ass with bullets and they Surena girlfriends/chicas too to show them that niggas aint playin'.

Why don't you niggas stop blastin your innocent people and let these fag ass Surenos have it. Come on now. The LAPD and the Sheriffs aint go do shit.

[antman6447]

I don't know him, but..

rip

[Christina Marie]

Im not so sure it was Surs that shot Jamiel. They arent really saying anything that it was black/latino. Maybe, maybe not. Junta....as for going after the Surs, do you really think thats going to help lower the body count on either side? And yeah that shit in the gateway was truly fucked up.

[perongregory]

If these black gangs out here were smart, they would do their research and study where these Surenos hang out (I mean the actual streets, neighborhoods, zip codes, etc.) and start spraying they ass with bullets and they Surena girlfriends/chicas too to show them that niggas aint playin'.

Why don't you niggas stop blastin your innocent people and let these fag ass Surenos have it. Come on now. The LAPD and the Sheriffs aint go do shit.

nah niggas like hurtin especially killin each other only. It's funny I was lookin at some youtube vid comments and it was a PVCC uso fightin with a WSP USO, and the PVCC cat said if yall was black we woulda been blasted on you fools but since yall samoan we let yall slide, then latter it was a KPCC nigga arguin with a PVCC USO and the KPCC nigga said if you was black I would kill your ass but since you samoan ima just beat yo ass up.

[Black_Kingz86]

true . all the true nigga ogs r either dead or locked up ,
now its jus dese cowards ass niggaz out here , they aint gon do shit.
theyre jus gonna keep fighting amongst themselves.

[pistolslanga]

true . all the true nigga ogs r either dead or locked up ,
now its jus dese cowards ass niggaz out here , they aint gon do shit.
theyre jus gonna keep fighting amongst themselves.

if muthafukkas were real ridas surenos would be catching hell right now

[Tre]

Surenos are catching hell just like the blacks! Truth be told many black on brown or brown on black killings are just going unreported. Shit… just the other week a Hispanic dude walked up to my nigga X and gunned him down near 103rd and Alameda, but you would be hard pressed to find shit about it.
If Chief Bratton and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa properly reported all sides of this conflict, including all the racial killings that go unsolved in LA it would only reveal to the public just how out of control the racial violence really is! For public concern and peace of mind the LAPD wants to give the illusion of being in control, even when their not

[yo foo]

Surenos are catching hell just like the blacks! Truth be told many black on brown or brown on black killings are just going unreported. Shit… just the other week a Hispanic dude walked up to my nigga X and gunned him down near 103rd and Alameda, but you would be hard pressed to find shit about it.
If Chief Bratton and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa properly reported all sides of this conflict, including all the racial killings that go unsolved in LA it would only reveal to the public just how out of control the racial violence really is! For public concern and peace of mind the LAPD wants to give the illusion of being in control, even when their not

Yup. I saw Cheif Bratton on the news saying how its not a racial thing, no racial war is going on. He was like there is 4million people in this city, 40,000 gang members, and these are just two isolated incidents. Man, they just don't the public to freak out. But I think a lot of people already know that this racial shit is out of control.

[flame_guards_member1]

."


A police spokeswoman said two Latino men pulled up in a car, jumped out, asked Jamiel if he belonged to a gang, and shot him when he didn't answer. quote]

that part has me doubting that the kid was innocent, and of course the parents are gonna say that the had a good kid

Agreed.

[junta]

If these black gangs out here were smart, they would do their research and study where these Surenos hang out (I mean the actual streets, neighborhoods, zip codes, etc.) and start spraying they ass with bullets and they Surena girlfriends/chicas too to show them that niggas aint playin'.

Why don't you niggas stop blastin your innocent people and let these fag ass Surenos have it. Come on now. The LAPD and the Sheriffs aint go do shit.

nah niggas like hurtin especially killin each other only. It's funny I was lookin at some youtube vid comments and it was a PVCC uso fightin with a WSP USO, and the PVCC cat said if yall was black we woulda been blasted on you fools but since yall samoan we let yall slide, then latter it was a KPCC nigga arguin with a PVCC USO and the KPCC nigga said if you was black I would kill your ass but since you samoan ima just beat yo ass up.

I always wondered why dont the Moans and the Blacks click up and dust off these Surenos. The ese's outnumber all races of gangs out here but I keep hearing that dont mean shit though out here.

[VALERO]

If these black gangs out here were smart, they would do their research and study where these Surenos hang out (I mean the actual streets, neighborhoods, zip codes, etc.) and start spraying they ass with bullets and they Surena girlfriends/chicas too to show them that niggas aint playin'.

Why don't you niggas stop blastin your innocent people and let these fag ass Surenos have it. Come on now. The LAPD and the Sheriffs aint go do shit.

nah niggas like hurtin especially killin each other only. It's funny I was lookin at some youtube vid comments and it was a PVCC uso fightin with a WSP USO, and the PVCC cat said if yall was black we woulda been blasted on you fools but since yall samoan we let yall slide, then latter it was a KPCC nigga arguin with a PVCC USO and the KPCC nigga said if you was black I would kill your ass but since you samoan ima just beat yo ass up.

I always wondered why dont the Moans and the Blacks click up and dust off these Surenos. The ese's outnumber all races of gangs out here but I keep hearing that dont mean shit though out here.

Well, if you're going to put it like that, then you should include other non-Hispanic groups like Asians, as in Asian, Samoan, and Black gangs having an alliance against Latino gangs. Is it true that TRG is allied with Insane LB Crips in Long Beach against the Longo gangs?

[perongregory]

cuz niggas like killing each other more, and Asians usually fight each other as well.

[NikexCortez]

Asians and Blacks use to get along in the Beach droppin racist Eses. Yea TRG had Black allies and so did the Cambodian Crips. Samoans are still allied with the Cambodian Crips and beefin it with TRG in the Beach.

Nowadays the new generation Blacks hating on the Cambodians but the OGz keep it koo.

Who give a fu ck about who and who koo with and race being koo with a certain race, fu ck that non stop cycle bull shit. Fools just gotta wize up and understand they hurting peoples lives over some ignorant ass shit.

Too many innocent lives was takin in the Beach, too many....

[perongregory]

Asians and Blacks use to get along in the Beach droppin racist Eses. Yea TRG had Black allies and so did the Cambodian Crips. Samoans are still allied with the Cambodian Crips and beefin it with TRG in the Beach.

Nowadays the new generation Blacks hating on the Cambodians but the OGz keep it koo.

Who give a fu ck about who and who koo with and race being koo with a certain race, fu ck that non stop cycle bull shit. Fools just gotta wize up and understand they hurting peoples lives over some ignorant ass shit.

Too many innocent lives was takin in the Beach, too many....

you right and its funny cuz when you think about it we all some ghetto dwellers gettin the raw end of the deal anyways but these bitches trippin over some dumb shit killin innocents.

[Mcminister]

because niggas like killing each other more, and Asians usually fight each other as well.

i always noticed that...if u are white n u get into a fight with a black dude, he mite bring his frends and beat the crap outa u and dats it...but if u black u have a good chance of gettin smoked.

[pistolslanga]

because niggas like killing each other more, and Asians usually fight each other as well.

i always noticed that...if u are white n u get into a fight with a black dude, he mite bring his frends and beat the crap outa u and dats it...but if u black u have a good chance of gettin smoked.

its funny

i was talkin to my homie

im like, yea , so w/e w/e, w/e, so that 1 foo got problems with u?

him "yea dawg, fukk that nygga, he a bytch, imma fukk him up"

me "shiiet, but ey those ese's be real racist why dont yall get on em"


him "man fukk em, im tryna get my money man"


coward.

a muthafuckin coward.

[alexalonso]

i posted a comment on the Jamiel Shaw murder on my blog.

http://www.streetgangs.com/journal/index.php?itemid=17

please take a look and comment on it. no registration required to comment.

[VALERO]

Alonso, I guess you were right in saying an 18th Streeter had probably committed the murder. Maybe this wasn't racial after all, the 18th Street guy maybe just saw a black dude and assumed he was a rival from the P-Stones, I don't know. So Alonso, is Mid-City in Southwest Los Angeles also like the Jungles and West Adams?

Alleged gang member arrested in football star's death

Pedro Espinoza, 19, was charged with capital murder in the Mid-City shooting of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw Jr., whose funeral was today.
By Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 12, 2008

A young convict and alleged gang member had been released from jail a little more than a day before he shot and killed Los Angeles High School football star Jamiel Shaw Jr., LAPD Chief William J. Bratton said Tuesday.

On the same day mourners attended the 17-year-old's funeral in the Crenshaw district, authorities announced that the alleged gunman, Pedro Espinoza, 19, had been formally charged with Shaw's death. Espinoza, according to officials, is a member of the 18th Street gang and had spent nearly four months in a Los Angeles County jail for exhibiting a firearm and resisting arrest before he was released March 1, 28 hours before Shaw's death.

"It was spontaneous," Bratton said of the killing. "He was a gang member. He saw someone else he thought was from an opposing gang and he immediately, almost intuitively, popped out of that car and shot that young boy twice.

"He assassinated him just on the belief the other individual may have been a gang member. That is what we are up against in this city, sociopaths like that who just got out of jail and within a day had a gun and in an instant took that young boy's life."

The charge of murder with special circumstance enhancements could carry the death penalty.

Shaw, who was not a gang member, was only three doors from his home in Arlington Heights on March 2 when he was fatally shot. Two men in a car had pulled up next to him, asked if he belonged to a gang, and then shot him when he apparently didn't answer, authorities say.

After hearing the gunshots, Shaw's father ran outside to find his son wounded next to a tree that the two had planted with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa almost three years ago as part of the city's Million Trees Initiative. The boy later died in a hospital.

Several tips from the public led to Espinoza's arrest late Friday night, authorities said. Detectives continue to search for the second, unidentified person in the vehicle. Espinoza appeared in a downtown courtroom Tuesday, but his arraignment was postponed until March 25. He is being held without bail.

Before the killing, Espinoza had been in jail since Nov. 18, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore. While incarcerated, he was sentenced Jan. 22 to 180 days in jail with credit for time served, records show.

Bratton said that Espinoza's sole motivation was his membership in the 18th Street gang, and that his fatal actions were designed to further the gang's activities. Bratton said the killing had nothing to do with the fact that he was Latino and his victim, black.

Shaw, a running back, was named his team's and the Southern League's most valuable player in 2007, and he had drawn the interest of recruiters from Stanford and Rutgers universities, his family said.

His mother, Army Sgt. Anita Shaw, was serving in Iraq when her son was slain and flew home to be with her family. She has called for community action to stop gang violence.

On Tuesday, a bouquet of blue-and-white flowers lay atop the youth's casket, representing the colors of the Los Angeles High School Romans football team. His teammates, in white-and-blue jerseys, were among the mourners.

At a news conference in City Hall later, Villaraigosa said Shaw's death had affected the city deeply.

"Jamiel Shaw represented the hope and opportunity of so many young people in our city," the mayor said. "He was not only a star athlete, he was a star human being as well. He was a model for his peers. He worked hard, according to his coach. He played by the rules and set himself on a course toward college and a limitless future.

"He was gunned down by someone who was close in age but who took a different path," Villaraigosa said.

[Common Sense]

This is really amazing how Detectives are catching fools witht the quickness these day's. I don't believe I have ever noticed such a thing before.

She has called for community action to stop gang violence.

Well we can forget this. The community has had too many crack babies over the last 20 years, and the ignorant rate is still sky high. So gang violence will continue.

Pedro Espinoza, 19 years of age. dumb duMB DUMB! This is what happens when you are just plain stupid and ignorant. You willingly hand your life over to the state. I'm sure 18th St. will take good care of him, send him money every week for his needs, handle his little business on the outside. Send him a box of goodies every 4 months. MOST LIKELY NOT!

Fool... you fell for the OKI-DOKE. Another dumb arse kid, who couldn't make basic right decisions for himself, looking to impress older dumb arse fools, who is even more stupid.

Who's next!. I'm sure some other fool will do something stupid somewhere before the end of the month.

[alexalonso]

This is really amazing how Detectives are catching fools witht the quickness these day's. I don't believe I have ever noticed such a thing before.

She has called for community action to stop gang violence.

Well we can forget this. The community has had too many crack babies over the last 20 years, and the ignorant rate is still sky high. So gang violence will continue.

Pedro Espinoza, 19 years of age. dumb duMB DUMB! This is what happens when you are just plain stupid and ignorant. You willingly hand your life over to the state. I'm sure 18th St. will take good care of him, send him money every week for his needs, handle his little business on the outside. Send him a box of goodies every 4 months. MOST LIKELY NOT!

Fool... you fell for the OKI-DOKE. Another dumb arse kid, who couldn't make basic right decisions for himself, looking to impress older dumb arse fools, who is even more stupid.

Who's next!. I'm sure some other fool will do something stupid somewhere before the end of the month.

most teenage killers are often arrested. It is actually unusual for them to get away with it. When a murder goes unsolved you can safely assume that the killer was not a teenager.

[pistolslanga]

This is really amazing how Detectives are catching fools witht the quickness these day's. I don't believe I have ever noticed such a thing before.

She has called for community action to stop gang violence.

Well we can forget this. The community has had too many crack babies over the last 20 years, and the ignorant rate is still sky high. So gang violence will continue.

Pedro Espinoza, 19 years of age. dumb duMB DUMB! This is what happens when you are just plain stupid and ignorant. You willingly hand your life over to the state. I'm sure 18th St. will take good care of him, send him money every week for his needs, handle his little business on the outside. Send him a box of goodies every 4 months. MOST LIKELY NOT!

Fool... you fell for the OKI-DOKE. Another dumb arse kid, who couldn't make basic right decisions for himself, looking to impress older dumb arse fools, who is even more stupid.

Who's next!. I'm sure some other fool will do something stupid somewhere before the end of the month.

most teenage killers are often arrested. It is actually unusual for them to get away with it. When a murder goes unsolved you can safely assume that the killer was not a teenager.

because most teenagers brag and flaunt and let the world know

act like the world is their stomping ground

[Common Sense]

'To An Athlete Dying Young'

On Tuesday afternoon, I witnessed a superhuman act of strength. We were gathered inside the West Angeles Cathedral on Crenshaw Boulevard, a mammoth facility with a balcony and video screens that's like a concert hall crossed with a place of the Lord. Only a few funerals each month happen here, mostly for Los Angeles celebrities and people with ties to the church. For Johnnie Cochran's funeral two years ago, every one of the cathedral's 5,000 seats was famously filled. It's the type of place you wouldn't expect to see a 17-year-old kid lying peacefully in a coffin, not unless he was related to a singer or a politician or something. But that's who was there, and that's who we came to see.

Sitting in the front row, an older man wiped a black handkerchief against his eyes and kept burying his head into his hands, as if he couldn't summon enough power to watch the proceedings. He had been repeating this cycle for most of the previous hour, digging that handkerchief against his eyes, burying his head in dismay, looking up at that coffin, then beginning the whole process again. The man seemed broken. You couldn't even say he was grieving. This was something else.

I spent much of that hour watching the man and his wife, as well as their 9-year-old son sitting unflinchingly between them. The boy never moved. He sat upright in his chair, listening to everybody speak, unfazed by the sniffling and the wailing, frozen by everything that was happening. His mother was sobbing intermittently and feeding off the church's singers, especially during a stirring rendition of "If I Ain't Got You," as she raised her hands and swayed to the music, pulling her hands back toward her body and sucking force from the words.

At one point, I glanced at my program and noticed the broken man was scheduled to speak. This seemed impossible. He couldn't even keep his head up ... and he was going to say something? The moment came and the man unfurled himself from his seat, took a deep breath and staggered toward the podium. When he kicked things off by saying, "This is gonna be hard for me," his voice cracked and it seemed like that would be that. He would cry, and he'd keep crying, and then he would collapse against the podium, and four relatives would rush up there and help him back to his seat. That's how this would play out. I would have bet anything.

I was wrong.

Somehow, the man summoned the power to keep talking. Once the words started coming, he gained more and more strength, and within a few seconds, he was giving a poignant speech and attempting to place his son's life in perspective. When he finished speaking, everyone in the church -- maybe 1,200 mourners in all -- stood up and applauded him. I don't know how he did it. I will never know how he did it.

To understand the meaning behind his words, you need to understand what brought everyone to the cathedral on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. We came to mourn Jamiel Andre Shaw Jr., a 17-year-old junior from Los Angeles High who everyone called "Jas" (pronounced "Jazz"), the nickname that initially belonged to his father before Pops graciously handed it down. On the first Sunday night in March, Jas was walking home in Arlington Heights when two Latino gangbangers started eyeballing him from a trailing car. Jas kept walking. When they hopped out of their car and approached him, Jas stopped just 40 yards from the front door of his house, the same distance he dreamed of running for NFL scouts some day.

"Where you from?" one of them asked.

That's a loaded question on the streets, code for determining someone's gang affiliation. Give the wrong answer and that's that. Since he didn't belong to a gang, Jas decided against saying anything. Maybe he was thinking about that last 40 yards. Maybe he thought they wouldn't shoot a star running back. Maybe he believed that silence was his best recourse. Maybe he was too scared to say anything.

They shot him anyway. Twice.

Sitting inside his house, Jamiel Shaw Sr. heard the unmistakable sounds of gunfire and dialed his son's cell phone to warn him. Senior spent all 17 years of Junior's life terrified that something bad would happen, that his son would wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time, that he'd talk back to the wrong person, that he'd be riding in the wrong car on the wrong night. He desperately wanted his son to reach 18. That was his only goal as a father. Eighteen. He even dubbed it the "18-Year Plan" to bang home the point. Eighteen meant college. Eighteen meant Jas never became a casualty of the streets, that he never found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Eighteen meant Jas was relatively lucky. Minority kids in Los Angeles, whether black or brown, need a little luck to make it to 18. Not a ton of luck, but a little luck. Just a smidge. You never know.

When nobody picked up Jas' phone within a few seconds, it dawned on Jamiel Sr. that his son could have reached the neighborhood already. He darted out his front door and right into his worst nightmare -- the sight of his innocent son laying on the sidewalk, the sound of a getaway car speeding away. Had this happened in a movie, we would have seen the father running toward the son in slow motion and screaming "Noooooooooooo!" The son would have said something profound with his last breaths before his eyes froze open. The father would have cradled his dying son, reared his head back and screamed toward the sky. And ... scene. In real life, you hear a pop-pop sound, make a call, bolt outside and find your son already gone. As Jamiel Sr. described it later, "He was laying on the ground and his face looked so peaceful. I knew he was dead."

Over the next few days, friends and family would wonder what happened and, more importantly, why it happened. How could the world be this cruel? Why would anyone want to kill a boy who did everything right? And Jas did do everything right. He studied and attended class. Stayed out of trouble. Treated people with respect. Listened to his parents. Took care of his little brother. Played football so well that his league named him most valuable player as a junior. Carried the football so beautifully (averaging more than 14 yards per carry!) that his coach compared him to Houdini. Showed enough promise that schools like Stanford and Arizona State were recruiting him. The son dreamed of playing football in college and the NFL, then pursuing a second career as a sports agent. The father simply dreamed of seeing the son turn 18.

When Jas came up 10 months shy, his senseless murder received national attention because of his football ability and a fascinating wrinkle that his mother, Anita, happened to be serving the country overseas in Iraq. The Associated Press filed an extensive story that landed in nearly every newspaper and on nearly every Web site. CNN filmed an interview with Anita Shaw for Anderson Cooper's show. The Los Angeles Times wrote an initial story and a few days of follow-ups. Every L.A. network led its newscast with the story. There was a candlelight vigil after Jas' death that attracted a phalanx of cameras. At Tuesday's funeral, I half-expected to see a couple of Hollywood executives lingering afterward, hoping to purchase Jas' story and turn him into the Cornbread Hamilton or Ricky Baker of his generation.

None of that happened. Jamiel Shaw's funeral turned out to be unfathomably sad. It's tragic any time a parent outlives a child, or a teenager is slain for no reason, but the mourning process jumps a level if it's a gifted athlete getting chopped down before his prime. There's a reason A.E. Housman's "To An Athlete Dying Young" gets taught in nearly every high school poetry class; there's a reason students always respond to that poem and remember it. The finest prep athletes achieve a level of notoriety that dwarfs everyone else in school. They're envied and respected, admired and coddled, cheered and idolized. Everyone else would trade places with them in a heartbeat. It's a gift; not an important gift, not a life-altering gift, but still a gift. When that gift gets taken away, it gets taken away from everyone.

Had a typical student with good grades been gunned down, the story wouldn't have attracted as much attention. When it's a star football player with a chance to make something of his life? It matters to people who didn't even know him. Maybe he would have starred in college. Maybe he would have starred in the pros. Maybe he would have injured a knee next season, and that would have been that. There's no way to know. What mattered was the promise that something could happen, that something might happen. And although A.E. Hausman believed it's a blessing in disguise for an athlete to pass early ...

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose

... everyone at Jamiel Shaw's funeral would respectfully disagree.


When a screwed-up city like Los Angeles claims someone like Jas, the pain goes beyond a gifted kid getting cheated out of a bright future and even beyond the community losing a much-needed role model, the successful product of a two-parent family, someone who set a constant example for everyone younger than him. Jas' death makes all of us feel vulnerable. If the anointed ones can't make it, then who can?

And so hundreds of people showed up at West Angeles Cathedral to pay their respects and find solace in numbers. Other than his family and friends, 34 of Jas' teammates showed up in their white football jerseys. A good chunk of Los Angeles High showed up on a school day, with their principal's blessing. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave a heartfelt speech about peace and unity, then tapped into his inner Carcetti and snuck out halfway through the service. There were cameras and photographers, reporters and policemen, teachers and mourners, acquaintances and well-wishers. I showed up early, found a seat in the balcony and tried to make sense of everything while holding three things: My notebook. A disturbing flier with a $55,000 reward for Jamiel Shaw Jr.'s killer. And a well-done program that featured heartfelt letters to Jas from the ones closest to him, including a cousin who asked the salient question, "Why is the world so mean?"

Like everyone else, I was waiting for an answer when Jamiel Sr. somehow pulled himself together and started speaking. He mentioned the fear of residing in a gang-infested city, how he felt powerless when Jas got older for the same reason that every parent starts to feel powerless -- once children start spreading their wings and parents realize they can't spend every second of the day with them, there comes a point when the parents just have to cross their fingers, let the children spread those wings and hope for the best. Still, as Jamiel Sr. put it, "We shouldn't have to cringe every time our kids go outside."

He described the "18-Year Plan" and how it didn't necessarily fall a few months short, how he planned on devoting his life to spreading that message and making sure his son didn't expire in vain. To his everlasting credit, he attempted to diffuse racial tensions that have been smoldering since the murder, saying his son's death wasn't a black/brown thing but a gang thing, then going out of his way to mention some of Jas' Latino friends from his football team and his neighborhood. He hoped the community could quell gang violence and use his late son as a rallying cry, mentioning wistfully that "[Jas] believed me when I told him that if he did everything right, it would be OK ... and look what happened."

Normally in these situations, the speaker feels obligated to editorialize against gang violence ("We gotta band together; we gotta stop killing each other"), and everything sounds great until you remember later that it's a pipe dream. Jamiel Sr. took a more realistic approach, making the astute point that "sometimes people are in gangs for the wrong reason, but it's the right reason for them."

Which is precisely why a community has no chance of snuffing out these gangs, no matter how much money is raised and how many people get involved. There will always be reasons for people to join a gang, just like there will always be reasons to stop them. The commitment has to come from the top. Almost always, it does not.


There was a certain symmetry to Jas' funeral occurring two days after the final episode of "The Wire," the groundbreaking HBO show that over five seasons detailed the decay of Baltimore, a city that rotted like a fish from the head down. The good guys rarely ended up winning on that show. In one memorable moment during the final season (note: spoiler warning from this point on), detective Jimmy McNulty found out budget cuts had curtailed his ongoing investigation of Marlo Stanfeld, the city's reigning drug kingpin. He couldn't believe it.

"Marlo doesn't get to win," McNulty muttered in frustration. "WE get to win."

McNulty ended up rigging a murder investigation, turning the city upside down for a few weeks, somehow bagging Marlo and his crew, then losing Marlo on a techicality and getting asked to resign. That's the thing about real life -- guys like Marlo do get to win. Through the wisdom imparted in 60 grueling episodes, "Wire" fans learned rudderless cities are helpless against drugs and gangs. You need politicians willing to make substantial commitments to police and schools. You need a never-ending reservoir of money. And, even then, that's probably not enough if drugs and gangs are the only options for so many impoverished teenagers. When Jamiel Sr. made his point about "the right reason for them," I thought instantly of Marlo, an icy character who never lost his cool until the second-to-last episode, when he finds out in prison that a street foe had been calling him out on the streets but nobody bothered to tell him. Marlo upbraids his minions with a stream of obscenities, finally screaming in frustration, "MY NAME IS MY NAME!" For him, that was all that mattered. His name and nothing else.

In the final episode, after his lawyer sprung him of all charges -- but with the caveat that Marlo sell his business and never go back to dealing drugs -- there is an incredible scene in which Marlo leaves a cocktail party filled with elite Baltimore businessmen, unable to handle the thought of inhabiting their spineless world, ultimately walking the streets and picking a fight with two thugs on a street corner. After landing two blows and sending them scurrying, the scene ends with Marlo checking a wound on his arm, tasting the blood, laughing and standing proudly on his new corner, reclaiming the streets if only for those few seconds. You could say Marlo was wrong for being a drug dealer, but, to steal a phrase from Jamiel Sr., it was the right reason for him.

Marlo's character became a defining character on the show, an unredeeming villain who embraced street life and everything that came with it. We never met Marlo's parents and didn't need to meet them -- he was created by Baltimore itself, a city with reprehensibly bad schools and too many one-parent and no-parent families, a city that left its young kids to mostly fend for themselves. The show's fourth season revolved around four teenage friends, all of whom started out with good hearts even though they had little chance of making anything of their lives. By last weekend's final episode, three of the four were hopeless -- one stuck in a group home, one hooked on drugs, one resigned to life as a street thug -- with the fourth finding salvation from an adopted family. When we saw the fourth speaking about AIDS in Africa at a Baltimore city debate this season, it was an especially rewarding moment because we knew the odds had been stacked so dramatically against him.

That's why those 60 episodes were so special as a whole: They didn't just tell you that things were bad, they showed you why things were bad and why things had so little chance of ever changing. The show's enduring point was there will always be more people like Marlo, Omar, McNulty, Prop Joe, Bubbles and Carcetti; everyone was filling a certain role, the principles of a messed-up city were more cyclical than anything: nothing will really ever change.

You could say the same about inner-city Los Angeles, an area ravaged by violence and poverty that seems utterly entrenched in its ways. The city's police force is woefully and comically understaffed, and most public schools are sketchy enough that the competition for spots in private schools and respected public schools starts as early as pre-K. There's a festering feud between Latino gangs and black gangs that has been threatening to boil over for years, a problem that, ironically enough, would have been the theme for the sixth season of "The Wire" had HBO ignored feeble ratings and allowed creator David Simon to keep the series going.

It's the same feud that ultimately claimed L.A. High's star running back. He looked like Dwyane Wade, smiled like Magic Johnson and ran like a young Barry Sanders. For the past year, his teammates and his community looked up to No. 4. Tuesday, they looked down on him. He was lying peacefully, like the way his father found him. And for three hours, a number of people spoke and tried to make sense of what happened, but, really, nobody did until the minister mentioned something in his eulogy: the "irony" of Jas' mother "fighting terrorism on foreign soil, and lo and behold, street terrorism is right here."

And thriving. According to a story in Wednesday's L.A. Times, the alleged killer was a 19-year-old member of the 18th Street Gang who had been released from prison a day earlier. LAPD Chief William Bratton explained the killer mistook Jas for a member of a rival gang, the implication being that his death, for lack of a better word, was a mistake. Of course, we know better. When somebody commits murder because they're trying to make a name for themselves or defend some arbitrary stretch of turf, that's not a mistake. It's terrorism in its most basic form, an excessive use of fear to accomplish a goal.

Whether we do anything about it remains to be seen. When Jamiel Sr. emerged from a sobbing heap, stood on wobbly legs and vowed to keep his "18-Year Plan" going, I desperately wanted to support him and felt humbled by his strength. But I couldn't shake the memory that, once upon a time, the man felt obligated to start an "18-Year Plan" in the first place.

RIP, Jas. You almost made it.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... d=tab1pos1

[PolarAC]

Good Read^^^

I tell you man, as much as I love this city, I do think about getting out of here for my son's sake. I still got time cause he still a toddler, but 12 years from now, don't be surprised if you catch me in Ventura County or some stuff.

[raphead2001]

my son bout to turn 1 and yea im with you im not gonna let him grow up out here. but i always knew it was an 18 that got homeboy from L.A. high. even b4 i got the info i was like a mexican got a black on washington in the aves, he must be from 18. but thats probably why he got caught cuz only 18's is known for doing stuff like that around here in the CITY

[Mcminister]

[/quote]most teenage killers are often arrested. It is actually unusual for them to get away with it. When a murder goes unsolved you can safely assume that the killer was not a teenager.[/quote]

thats amazingly true.

[Mcminister]

because most teenagers brag and flaunt and let the world know

act like the world is their stomping ground

true, teenagers also always do it in groups unless its during a heated arguement.

well depends on clearance rate in your city. LA i think is at 70 somethin %....places like B.more,DC,chicago teenagers get away with murder alot even after bragging and boosting, there is alot of multiple murder teens out there free runnin the streets day and night.....folks in LA got gutts murderin people with that high ass clearing rate

[junta]

because most teenagers brag and flaunt and let the world know

act like the world is their stomping ground

true, teenagers also always do it in groups unless its during a heated arguement.

well depends on clearance rate in your city. LA i think is at 70 somethin %....places like B.more,DC,chicago teenagers get away with murder alot even after bragging and boosting, there is alot of multiple murder teens out there free runnin the streets day and night.....folks in LA got gutts murderin people with that high ass clearing rate

Teens more so than the older cats are wildin' out in LA. Teens regardless of what path they chose will do anything to be down. A lot of teens are stupid (everybody was dumb when they were a teen including me). A lot of these shootings out here are done by teens trying to show how hard they are for these lifetime fuckups called OG's. Instead of stearing a kid in the right direction, OG's want another idiot soldier to do their dirty work so they can be "down". Gang life is a joke to me. Seriously!