Riverside: Shootings wound two men critically

[stamps]

Shootings wound two men critically

EASTSIDE: The Riverside neighborhood has seen four gunshot victims in just the last week.


11:46 PM PDT on Sunday, August 7, 2005



By BETTYE WELLS MILLER / The Press-Enteprise

Two men remained in critical condition late Sunday with gunshot wounds suffered in separate incidents Saturday on Riverside's Eastside, police said.

The two shootings were the third and fourth on the Eastside in a week, prompting community leaders to call Sunday for more police patrols and more citizen action to make the neighborhood safer.

In the most recent shooting, three young Hispanic men were shot by a group of black men while they were walking on Park Avenue south of Cridge Street at 11:45 p.m. Saturday, Sgt. Leon Phillips said in a written report.

All three were seriously injured, with one in critical condition, police said. Detectives from the gang unit are investigating.

A Nigerian man from Oklahoma who was shot 12 hours earlier at a University Avenue service station remained in very critical condition Sunday, Lt. Mark McFall said by phone. Ages and identities of the victims were not available Sunday.

Councilman Ameal Moore said he will call another community meeting this week to discuss what appears to be escalating violence between black and Hispanic gangs in the Eastside neighborhood.

"One thing I've found is we're spread quite thin as far as police are concerned," Moore said by phone Sunday afternoon. "Certain things have drawn police power away from the Eastside - the parolees, sex offenders, transitional housing."

Cathy Brostrand, a Victoria neighborhood resident, said she was outraged by the shootings.

"The police should not devote resources to victimless crimes like prostitution on University Avenue and pot-smokers," she said. "They should devote all their resources to solving these crimes."

Richard Rios, senior pastor of Victory Outreach in Riverside, said he is contacting other clergy in the community about working together to address the violence.

Victory Outreach members began walking the Eastside neighborhood every night three years ago after another string of shootings, he said.

Four or five members talk every night to gang members and pray for the community's safety, he said. After Friday evening services, six or more teams of a dozen men, women and children blanket the neighborhood.

"We're losing way too many people to gang violence," Rios said by phone Sunday afternoon. "We're losing a whole generation. ... We all want a safe place for our children, a future, jobs, some equity. The faith community can play a big role in helping to establish that in the community."

Victoria Jackson, executive director of the Coalition for Common Ground, said groups involved with the Eastside are searching for reasons for the recent violence. The coalition supports cross-cultural relations and holds computer classes for youths on the Eastside.

"Many community leaders feel it is because of business, the drug trade," she said. Others think gangs or bigotry are fueling the shootings, she said.

"We, as a community, have got to get together, find the reason and address the problem," Jackson said.

In the two previous shootings last week on the Eastside, a 20-year-old man was critically injured around 1:45 a.m. last Sunday. The man was walking on Martin Luther King Boulevard near Ottawa Avenue when two men in a white Cadillac pulled up and shot at him, Riverside police said in a news release.

An 11-year-old Riverside girl was shot in the arm around 9 p.m. Wednesday during a gang shootout on her street near Bobby Bonds Park in the Eastside neighborhood.

Staff writer Shirin Parsavand contributed to this story.

[fartherwest]

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[tysuave]

it's just another summer on the E!

[Scriptz]

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[pinky]

I was out there with my cousin and some samoan female tried to bang on us she said she was from eastside centinela park piru bloods

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[tysuave]

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on me #$%#" em

[Vincetheprince]

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