A Week in Watts Page #5

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It was a bit nerve wracking because back

then my perspective on cops wasn't, like,

cops weren't somebody

I was able to talk to.

I was kind of intimidated by them,

and they were just around

when something bad was going on.

But Officer Coughlin since

the very first day I met him,

he made me feel like

he was somebody I can depend on,

somebody I can trust.

My name is Renaldo Chavez.

I am 17 years old.

Class starts at 7:30.

We have homeroom first,

but during homeroom

instead of just getting schoolwork done,

I have to be at AP Calculus

with my math teacher

and then we just work on

the homework we had last night.

He's quiet,

but he's always listening, very intense.

There's an inquisitive mind to him.

I have six classes throughout the day,

and then I have seventh period as well,

Jedis, which is like the club that I'm in.

It's an acronym. So it stands for

Jesuit Educated Disciple in Service.

Pretty much like the campus ministry team.

Having Renaldo in OP has been a blessing.

Operation Progress...

they've given me a lot of opportunities

that others don't usually have.

Last year I had a bad year

with Algebra II,

and Operation Progress

made sure I had the tutoring.

Thank you.

He is so grateful for this program,

and it came out when they went to Kenya

this past summer on a service trip.

And he came back, and he was saying

how it changed his life.

I had never been

outside of the country before last year,

and Operation Progress sent me to Africa

so it gives me a different perspective

on the world.

Having been to Kenya

and seeing the level of poverty there

made me realize that I'm very fortunate.

Despite the fact that I live in

a violent area and not the best area,

I still have a roof over my head.

I still have food in the fridge

and, you know, a warm bed,

clean clothes

and I just feel very grateful.

Things got exciting. Huh?

- You didn't hear it?

- There were gunshots.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

We just kept playing soccer,

and then they called us.

We were like... and we ran.

Every day, wherever I go.

I don't hear it near our school,

like when I'm in school,

but in my neighborhood, pretty often.

What just happened was

that there was a shooting,

and everybody in the school

has to go in one vicinity.

Please excuse the interruption.

Kids with practice, cheerleading

and daycare they received the all clear.

You guys can go back

to your original spot.

Yay.

See you soon!

It's dangerous.

It's not really dangerous,

like, where I am kind of.

I know there's shootings and stuff,

but there's not where I have come

to where somebody's trying to put a knife

on me or anything like that.

So to me it's just

a little community that...

where bad stuff happens basically.

Something like that.

You know, watching Petra grow up here

and not having the safest neighborhood

to go out and play and her knowing that,

is so hard, because I get to go home

to a safe neighborhood where she doesn't.

When she goes home,

she doesn't go outside,

and that's for safety.

And there's a lot of kids who really are

like prisoners in their own home,

and it goes unnoticed

because they don't complain.

I think they're so busy just trying

to get through day-to-day life

with their struggles that there's

no time to formulate a protest.

And to be honest,

historically, nobody listens.

Why not?

Because if you complain publicly,

the results could be a beat down.

The fear and the intimidation, it's real.

Like, I hate it.

I hate it because...

something like, most of the time

I can't even go out to my friend's.

I gotta go into their house.

We can't even play basketball outside.

It is a hostile environment.

I'm not allowed to go outside

and associate with any of the rest of

the community members

that are associated with gangs.

It's weird, because Jennifer,

when I first met her,

I had no idea

she lived in Imperial Courts,

and that was the housing development

that I was assigned to

and it had already been two years,

and I've never seen this girl before.

And it was because she never came outside.

So a lot of people say it's dangerous.

It's a dangerous place,

and yeah, it's dangerous at times,

but I don't really go outside that much,

so I don't think it's that dangerous

around my neighborhood.

I actually mentored this girl named Daisy,

and I've had her for about four years,

and I met Daisy through, I guess

a homicide scene where we found Daisy.

We were coming back from

the restaurant and then we saw the cops.

We got off and then I noticed...

I saw Officer Moore, and I knew him.

So then... and then he talked with

my sisters...

well, with my Dad, then my sister, Laty,

and then she started crying.

She was like, "No, no. "

And then I kept asking why was she crying?

What was happening?

So they told me that she...

well, Julio, he was murdered or killed.

We were called out, told to meet with

Long Beach homicide detectives.

They were working on what might have

been a connection to a southeast case.

They got called out

to this arson investigation

where they discovered a dead body

and through fingerprints,

they identified the victim as Julio Mejia.

The victim was a member of

5th and Hill gang,

and one of their rivals

is Hacienda Village Boys.

What we learned is that

our victim was on 109th Street,

but he was first seen by Louis Perez,

and the motive of this murder

was that Carlos Gallegos was shot

probably by a 5th and Hill gang member.

He was shot in November of 2011.

So there was a retaliation

from Carlos being shot.

They beat this guy down

to pretty much being unconscious,

and one of them goes and retrieves

one of these black trashcans

that you can roll, from his residence.

They throw him in head first

into the trashcan,

and they wheel him down to this ranch.

The ranch was a sore spot

for the entire neighborhood

where all the- essentially the majority

of the gang activity took place

because they were able

to do it in privacy.

And at some point while they're at the

ranch while the victim was still alive,

Louis Perez carves a large V in his chest,

which signified the V for Village Boys,

and they pretty much leave him for dead.

They take Louis Perez's car,

drive down to Long Beach.

It's a known location to him.

They take the body out of the trunk,

put it on top of combustible materials,

put lighter fluid on him

and set him on fire.

I felt like I couldn't believe it.

I was kind of sad

because he really loved Rosie,

and really, he seemed like he

would have been a really good dad.

But sometimes he...

just got drunk, I guess.

Yeah.

You know, I can tell you that he

left behind his baby mama,

real good person and

a very young daughter.

My little niece, Rosie,

she was very small and so she didn't know.

She didn't know what was going on,

and I guess she was wondering

what was happening too.

But she didn't know.

And that's how we met Daisy

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