101 Freeway Death: The Romeo and Juliet of Hollywood?

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - A 20-year-old man died on the 101 freeway at 8:15 am yesterday; he took a gunshot to the head before his car sailed across five lanes of the freeway and crashed into the divide. Initial reports suggested that the man was the victim of a violent attack, but police are now considering the possibility of suicide. A tragic story is beginning to emerge.

Early Sunday morning, police responded to an emergency call involving an attempted suicide. When officers arrived at the address on the 1800 block of Cordova St., they found Virginia Castillo, 19, had hanged herself. She was taken to hospital and died at 5:48 am. According to reports, Castillo had been arguing with her boyfriend, Marlon Gordillo Sical, 20, and had attempted suicide after Sical had run away. Three hours later, Sical too was dead, and what remained of his Sedan littered the freeway and silenced the busy road in sad memorial.

Police were investigating another freeway shooting in Long Beach when the incident occurred; part of a strain of freeway shootings involving road rage.

This story sounds like a Shakespearean tragedy; a Romeo and Juliet of Hollywood. What could have moved this young couple to such extremes?

Also, why is everyone shooting each other on the freeway?

Some experts say that weather has a correlation to crime. In warm weather, crime rates go up. It's a pretty insignificant correlation; as if sunshine makes people crazy.

The more accurate explanation is the simplest. Los Angeles is a difficult place to live. The divide between the rich and the poor leaves one half bitter and the other half scared. The tension is as clear as the transience and superficiality of the city. Nothing lasts. Not even the people. They either move up, into the hills, or down, into the dirt. There is no in between, no comfort in limbo. There is Compton, and there is Beverly Hills, and both are perpetuated by the stereotypes that live in the mind of Angelenos. This is a tough place to call home. As Jack Kerouac wrote: "L.A is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities."

Lonely. Brutal.

A fight for survival on a physical and spiritual level.

In a city of extremes, life and death are executed extremely. There is so much drama, and so little solace.

Dedicated to Virginia Castillo and Marlon Gordillo Sical. May they rest in peace.

Read More...

Shootings in Hollywood

For the second time this week, two gunshots were fired in the Sunset/Van Ness area. The shootings killed one man at approximately 1am on Wednesday, March 26. No details have been released about the shootings last night at 12:50am.

My bedroom window overlooks the Sunset Boulevard off-ramp where the man was shot and killed on Wednesday. On Tuesday night, as I was lying in bed, I heard two shots. Police sirens followed, and it was reported in the morning that one man was killed and the two suspects fled on foot. Residents tried to administer first aid to the man, but were unsuccessful. Last night I heard two gunshots again, fired sequentially as if two rounds were pumped from the same gun. It was the same type of shooting that I had heard on Tuesday. However, this time I heard no sirens. I am waiting for the police to contact me for more information about last night's gunfire. The LAPD confirmed that no name has been released for the man killed on Tuesday night. There are no media reports. The LA Times homicide blog has not been updated with his information. Initial television reports, from ABC, claimed that the man was thought to have been homeless.

Outside my apartment is a long strip of land that runs along the freeway. Many homeless people live and sleep in this area, and some residents in the apartment building have suggested that they are stealing laundry from our laundry room. The garbage cans outside are often scavenged, and sometimes I can hear people going through them at night. However, I have always found the homeless people in our area to be friendly and not at all aggressive or threatening. They seem to keep themselves to themselves, sleeping on the embankment at Sunset/Wilton or inside the doors of the church on Wilton.

I don't think of this area as "rough", and aside from one experience that made me feel uncomfortable involving a man running across the street at night to tell my boyfriend I should be walking on the inside of the street for protection... I have never been deterred from walking home at night.

But hearing gunshots before you go to sleep at night might be the last straw for my naivety. Twice in one week. I only hope that no-one was killed last night, and that this won't become a regular event.

Read More...

The NFL Stadium Threatening Lynwood Residents; What's Happening? April 14th Court Date

LYNWOOD, Calif. – For three years, Lynwood residents have been living in the shadow of an invisible football stadium. They have seen the value of their properties decrease, and the area has become a real-estate limbo since plans for an NFL stadium were mapped over their zip code. They don’t know whether to make themselves comfortable, or prepare to evacuate.

Silvia Villegas has decided to “wait it out.” She has lived in her house, on the west side of Atlantic Avenue within the designated stadium zone, for six years. She has seen city projects stagnate. The empty apartment complex at the end of her street was once remodelled to be a women’s center, and then an old-folks home, but was never opened, according to Villegas. Its windows have been boarded up since children started throwing rocks at them. Around the corner from her house, Ham Park is still a fenced-off dirt pile rather than a place for her children to play.

“Nothing gets finished,” said Villegas.

Three years have passed since each of these projects began. The contract for the apartment complex was passed in and out of enthusiastic hands, the shops were torn down to make way for the park, and residents in the stadium area were told to sell their homes early to make the most profit before the NFL arrives. But nothing has come to be.

According to Villegas, her neighbors have been trying to sell their house for a year. But no-one wants to buy property that is ear-marked to be torn down. And the football stadium that threatens five schools and 1000 homes has been weighing on the public mind since its inception behind the closed doors of the council chambers.

Since then, the council members involved were recalled and indicted for misappropriation of public funds, and the new faces at City Hall placed a preliminary injunction on the redevelopment contract. For six months, Residents have been holding their breath for word on whether or not the project will continue.

But on April 14th, they may be given an answer. “That day, the judge will decide whether or not the contract is enforceable,” said Mayor Pro-Tem Aide Castro. The redevelopment contract was amended at a meeting the former council members held in October 2007, after they had been recalled, which may mean that the contract is void. “Our stand is that the contract that was passed by the recalled council is not enforceable,” said Castro. “When you are recalled, you lose your powers.”

Aside from a monthly newsletter from City Hall listing events and menial announcements, Villegas and her neighbors have heard little from the new council, and nothing about the stadium that threatens to uproot them.

Read More...

A New Reputation, A Clean Slate for MacArthur Park

Read More...

Political Mudslinging in Lynwood; Crooked Campaigns

LYNWOOD, Calif. – Political action committees in Lynwood pulled out all the stops in the past two elections, rummaging through candidates’ pasts and publishing campaign material in order to sway voters. The methods were effective, but the committees don’t always play by the rules.

During the November 2007 election, a committee called Voters Against Corruption used a doctored photograph to accuse candidate Jim Morton of encouraging prostitution at his Long Beach Boulevard motel. According to Silvia Ortiz, who claims to have “provided the people” to pose as prostitutes for the photograph, Morton’s political rival Aide Castro helped the committee develop the anti-Morton campaign.

“Sometimes you get caught up with wanting to win so bad that the human side comes out,” said Ortiz. Ortiz confessed to her role in staging the photographs during the public comment section of a City Council meeting in February. She said she warned Castro that she would be making the confession and told her to “do the right thing” and make amends for her role in tarnishing Morton’s reputation.

“Maybe in a few years she’ll see that I did her a favor,” said Ortiz, who helps market Lynwood’s campaigns by going door-to-door and distributing campaign material. Ortiz said she is no longer on speaking terms with Castro.

The rules of the Fair Political Practices Commission state that candidates can only be involved with committees if the involvement is clear in the committee’s name. Castro spearheaded her own committee during the November election, called the Committee to Elect Aide Castro, and claims to have had no involvement with Voters Against Corruption, other than their support.

When asked to provide the names of Voters Against Corruption committee members, Castro refused. “They wouldn’t appreciate me disclosing that information,” she said. “They would be very upset with me.”

The committee was established by Christopher Robles, a former Montebello City Council candidate who donated frequently to past political-action committees at state and local government level, including the Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee. Robles could not be contacted for comment as his phone line has been disconnected and he has moved from Montebello.

The deadline to file campaign finance statements was Jan. 31, and Voters Against Corruption have yet to submit their consolidated campaign disclosure form. Robles could be subject to a $5,000 penalty for breaking the regulations of the Political Reform Act of 1974, according to Roman Porter of the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Political action committees are easy to establish and can be quickly dissolved. It only takes one person to form a committee, and the identities of the members are protected until documents have been completed and Public Information Act requests can be made.

A campaign piece produced during the recall election in September 2007 accusing Castro of drug smuggling was attributed to a committee that denied any connection to the piece and claimed a separate party had unlawfully used their name. According to Ortiz, Fernando Pedroza was responsible for the piece. Pedroza was one of the council members being recalled and Castro’s cousin.

“We’re supposed to be doing this the democratic way,” said Ortiz, who claims that Lynwood’s elections are convoluted by the propaganda produced by political-action committees. “It’s not what voters want; it’s whose got the money to sway the vote.” And so long as committees continue to side-step campaign laws, it will be difficult to pin-point who is doing the swaying.

Read More...

Strange Days Indeed

I take the subway every day. I wait for a bus at MacArthur Park every day. I take a bus down Alvarado to school every day.

Strange things frequently happen. I sat next to a woman a few weeks ago who told me that she was on her way to jail for kicking her baby. I don't know if she was being serious or not, but when I asked her "why?" she said: "I don't know mommy. Sometimes I just get so angry. They've put me on pills because I'm crazy mommy." The she tried to sell me a half-empty bottle of perfume.

For some reason, I end up involved in conversations I could never foresee having. But, as strange as they often are, they are precious moments in a strange world. They are moments of connectedness in a land of segregation. They are insights of humanity in a city of superficiality.

But yesterday, it wasn't a conversation that knocked me sideways... it was an image.

Just when I was thinking "I don't know why everyone is so afraid of MacArthur Park", because it always seems so full of life and smells (not always bad ones either; at night, the street vendors waft the scent of tamales, tacos, corn-on-the-cob and hot dogs along Alvarado Street and it always makes me feel joyful), I crossed the street and was confronted by a strange image indeed:

A man wearing a blue jacket with a hood pulled up over his head, was being "shooed" from McDonalds by an employee who was "sweeping" at him with one of those dustpan-and-brush-in-one things that they always use to clean up in fast food restaurants. She was shouting at him, angrily, in Spanish. He was shouting "Shut up!". An ordinary argument for the streets of downtown LA? Not quite... the man was shuffling away with his pants around his ankles, and there was no underwear in sight.

Now, that's an unexpected eye-full at the end of a long day.

Perhaps if I could understand Spanish I would have been able to assess what the root of the problem was... but unfortunately, I was left to my own deductions and couldn't exactly investigate the matter. It will be a long time, however, before I stop wondering what had happened moments before I arrived at that quaint little McDonalds in Westlake.

Never a dull day in LA.



(Bonus Points for knowing where the title quote comes from)

Read More...

Los Angeles Got Cold: Two Strangers on a Train

At Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro Station, I trudged down the steps feeling the depressing de ja vu of routine. I take this route every day, and usually enjoy it, but today it felt like a weight. I wanted to be at home. I didn't want to face the every-day drudgery of my commute.

Just when I was writing this down ("I'm discouraged by the routine drudgery..."), a man with a croaky voice asked me which train it was that had just come by. I answered, and my accent forced him into a double-take moment, turning his platform-roving eyes back to mine in interest. He walked on by, and I turned back to my notebook and stared at it numbly. Whatever thought I was trying to capture, had lost it's import and it's moment.

Then, he came back.

"You're not from L.A, are you?" he said.

"No," I replied tentatively, having learnt that, on the subway, anyone you respond to may engage you in a long-winded, slightly insane rant that could potentially last the entire length of the awkward journey. With people I can understand, this is fine and interesting. With people who are really just talking to themselves, or to "demons," this is exhausting.

As it turns out, this young man was beyond interesting - he was engaging, and had a story of his own. Standing face-to-face with him I realized why my inital reaction had been one of uncertainty... his face was prematurely aged, lined with wrinkles that gave it the appearance of leather. But his eyes were young and shiny - deep wells of something not-quite-said but understood. We talked our way onto the train.

He was from Chicago and was feeling as blue about LA as I was. "I arrived by Greyhound," he told me. "They dropped me off at skidrow. That whole place is like a giant toilet that needs to be flushed."

I asked him what he thought the main difference was between here and his hometown in Chicago. "The people," he said. "They're so much nicer in Chicago. Here, everyone is mean. They're assholes."

I had to agree on that point - to an extent. "They don't seem to care very much about other people," I replied, just as a man disembarking the train bumped forcefully into me and sent me tripping off-balance. "Case in point," the Chicago man laughed.

We stood, holding onto the railings and swaying precariously with the unsteady and lurching movement of the train. "Do you want to hear a joke?" he asked me without a smile. "How does an Angeleno say 'Fuck you'?" ... "Trust me."

I only half got it, but it made me sadder still - especially coming from this old-looking young man without so much as a smile in his eyes, let alone his face.

This seemed to be a man who had suffered in his life. I didn't know how - but he had the face of someone marked by weakness and woe. The pain in his eyes betrayed to me that this man had seen more than anyone of his age would care to see.

The train pulled into another station. We sat down in a freshly-emptied seat. I was closer to his face now, and watching his eyes as he talked. Like many people who have suffered hardship in their lives, this man was afflicted by "the sadness cycle" - as I call it. People who have been through tough times - homelessness, addiction, abuse - have a hard time letting go of that sadness. They take it upon themselves to correct it by going into a field that requires them to face it everyday. They go into professions that cause them fresh pain, but give them the satisfaction of knowing that their own suffering was not in vain - because now they are helping to make the world right again. From suffering stems great compassion, and although that compassion is a great gift, it also causes endless pain. As the author Milan Kundera once wrote:

"There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes."

I know of people close to me, perhaps even including myself, whose personal sadness has born a great mission to right the wrongs of their own past through the rest of the world. This is not a bad thing for humanity - in fact, compassion is a wonderful and rare power - but it is nevertheless an unending cycle for the bearer, who feels the pain of others as if it were their own and takes every sad act of the world as a personal tragedy. These are the people who change the world without the attonement of medals or honor, but by treasuring their own humanity and nurturing the humanity of others. These are the people who change the sheets when things get messy, who change the light bulb when times get dark, and who listen to the lonely when no one else cares. For the old, the mentally disturbed, the emotionally-laden... these compassionate people are often the only people in their isolated lives.

The man from Chicago with the old face is starting school again next week, where he will study drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Soon, he will be the one person in many suffering people's lives. "I'm 29," he tells me. "I know I don't look it."

29? He looks like he has lived half that again, maybe more.

"Are you married?" he aks me, gestering at the ring on my left hand.
"Soon," I tell him.
"I just got divorced. A Year and a half ago." He shares his life with me freely, but not casually. I think he trusts me.
"I'm sorry," I say, and be honest; "I hope that won't happen to me."
"We had only been together 4 months. She got pregnant pretty quickly."
"It's amazing how life can change so quickly. From one minute to the next - everything is different." I am reminded of Joan Didion's book The Year of Magical Thinking, which is a memoir in which she explains how the death of her husband affected her. "Life changes in an instant," she repeatedly writes. It seems to offer comfort to her, and I took it upon myself to be comforted by it too. Life changes quickly, chaotically. Life isn't really in the hands of the beholder. Sometimes you have to let go and just run with it - and that can be quite a freeing thing sometimes. It can be a wonderful thing sometimes. Babies are born, couples are united, opportunities are grasped... all essential moments in life that over-thinking, or trying to "manage" would kill.

"One minute I'm partying at ASU...the next thing I'm a family guy," he says.

When we get to my stop, I'm sad to leave. I'll probably never see this man again, and therefore never be able to offer him comfort beyond the few minutes we shared, connected by our position as strangers, both lost in a lost city.

Outside the station, everything looked grey and dilapidated, like a movie that has been set in the Depression era. I shivered my way home, feeling a strange mixture of contentment and grief. L.A had gotten cold, but there was warmth to be found in places other than home.

Read More...