Killings Continue in South L.A., 21-year-old gunned down Monday night on 54th Street

A 21-year-old man was gunned down Monday evening, the fourth black youth in three days to be  shot and killed on the streets of South Los Angeles.

The victim, whose name is not known as of now, was standing 54th Street and 9th Avenue in the Hyde Park neighborhood  when two black male suspects exited their vehicle, One suspect grabbed the victim, and then the other shot him once in the head.  The two then fled in an unknown location.

The victim was transported to California Hospital where he was pronounced dead. 

Hyde Park is known as the stronghold of the Rollin' 60s, but it was not immediately known if they were involved in this homicide. But, the location of the shooting, on the northeast sector of Hyde Park, is near a Van Ness Gangster stronghold.

This case is not related to the previous three killings over the weekend which occurred on the eastside of the southside.  On Saturday night, 20-year-old Shujaa Silver aka Badass from Swans and 16-year-old Cy' Jai Bell were shot and killed at 81st and Avalon. 

The next day, in what is thought to be a payback, a 17-year-old male was shot to death at 83rd and Main Street, turf of Main Street Crips.

 Anyone with information can anonymously call LAPD's Criminal Gang Homicide Division at (213) 786-5100

Homicide Monday Morning on 83rd and Main Street, Possible Payback From Earlier Swans Killing

A 17-year-old black male was shot to death Monday morning on East 83rd Street and Main Street in what street sources are saying is likely a  "payback' for the killing of a Swan and a teenage girl Saturday night.

The youth was shot three times in his chest and was pronounced dead at the scene in a Main Street Crips neighborhood. 

Saturday night, shortly after 8 p.m., four people were shot by a man who exited a SUV and opened fired with an assault weapon near a liquor store at 81st Street and Avalon Boulevard, two of them fatally. The dead were Shujaa Silver II, 20, said to be known as  "Bad Ass" from Swans, a notorious Bloods gang, and 16-year-old Cy' Jai Bell. Two others were wounded and sustained non-life threatening injuries.

No further information is currently available on today's victim.

Anyone with information on the killings can anonymously call LAPD Criminal Gang Homicide Division at (323) 786-5100.

Swans Graffiti by "Bad Ass", whose tag is on far right.

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Four People Shot, Two Fatally, Saturday Night at 81st and Avalon

A young man and a teenage girl were shot to death and two others wounded by a man who exited a SUV and opened fire with an assault weapon in a gang-related shooting Saturday night a 81st Street and Avalon Boulevard. 

Shortly after 8 p.m., the shots rang out on the corner near liquor store. Shujaa Silver II, aka "Badass", a male black, age 20, was pronounced dead at the scene. Cy' Jai Bell, 16-years-old, was shot in the chest and  transported to California hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Two other black males, both in their 20s, sustained graze wounds to their backs and were transported to Californian and St Francis hospitals in fair but stable condition..

Police said victims and witnesses were being uncooperative and refused to provide any information. Street and police sources suspect a homicide Monday morning on 83rd and Main Street was payback for these killings. 

See for a little more info.    http://www.krikorianwrites.com/blog/2016/1/25/homicide-monday-morning-on-83rd-and-main-street-possible-payback-from-earlier-swans-killing

Four People Shot, Two Fatally, Saturday Night at 81st and Avalon

Two people were shot to death and two others wounded in a gang-related shooting Saturday night a 81st Street and Avalon Boulevard. 

Shortly after 8 p.m., the shots rang out on the corner near a liquor store. A male black in his 20s was pronounced dead at the scene. A female black in her 20s was shot in the chest and  transported to California hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Two other black males, both in their 20s, sustained graze wounds to their backs and were transported to Californian and St Francis hospitals in fair but stable condition..

Police said victims and witnesses were being uncooperative and refused to provide any information. 

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LocoL Watts, A Soft Opening in a Hard Neighborhood Goes Beautifully

Location, location, location..  

That is said to be a major key to success when opening a restaurant. 

So where does Roy Choi open his newest venture, LocoL?  On 103rd, a street that during the 1965 Watts Riots became nationally known as "Charcoal Alley" and not for the coals used to grill steaks, but for the burning cinders of the torched buildings by African Americans pushed to the brink by mistreatment from law enforcement. To top that off, to defy the location, location, location pundits, it's a half block from Grape Street, which the mere - and threatening - mention of so often has preceded mayhem.  

But, on a dreary Monday afternoon, that location, 103rd and Grape, across the street from the Jordan Downs housing projects,  mighta been the most joyous, grateful and satisfied corner in this whole city.

"This is so good for the community," said Bow Wow,  a fixture in Jordan Downs, who is employed by LocoL as an "Ambassador".  The ambassador duties?  Well, let's just say Bow Wow, like any ambassador, represents the territory to other territories in a positive manner.

Some were in line to eat, Others were just hanging out, happy to be part of a celebration in a community that has seen so much sadness come its way. One of them was Daude Sherrills, who along with his brother Aqeela  - a prominent gang interventionist and owner/partner in this restaurant  - was one of the architects of the historic 1992 Watts Gang Peace Treaty. 

"This is what a community development business is all about," said Daude as he held court with old and new friends near LocoL's patio. "Plant the roots of the business deep in the community.  It won't tip over that way. There are 36 jobs here, and 99% of the workers are from Watts.  This is great."  

On Saturday, at LocoL's back patio, Nardo, another Jordan Downs stalwart who is employed here, was telling customers "It's a soft opening", He turned to a reporter he's known for decades who had chided him for that lingo.  "Hey, I'm learning the restaurant language."  

LocoL, which bills itself as a "revolutionary fast food restaurant", is the brainchild of Roy Choi and famed San Francisco chef Daniel Patterson. The next restaurant is set to open in SF's gritty Tenderloin district..   There's even one planned near the notorious Nickerson Gardens, a mile away from 103rd Street. . 

This is from Choi and Patterson  

"We are a company where the chefs think about what to feed you. Where the chefs think about how to take care of you. We fundamentally believe that wholesomeness, deliciousness and affordability don't have to be mutually exclusive concepts in fast food. We believe that fast food restaurants can truly empower the communities they currently underserve. We believe that the giant corporations that feed most of America have degraded our communities by maximizing profits over decades. We believe that chefs should feed America, and not suits."

Monday, one of Local's managers, well known as "Ready", was moving through the crowded restaurant with the ease of a maitre d' at Spago, greeting old friends, chatting up new ones.  "It's great to see you,"  "Welcome to LocoL." "Enjoy your meal." 

The line of customers went down Anzac Avenue for nearly a whole city block.They were not disappointed. 

"I'm not going to Burger King or McDonalds or Carl's Jr, anymore," said Dion Mangram, a life-long resident of Jordan Downs.  "This is my new restaurant, It's healthy and delicious and reasonable."  

Indeed, a fried chicken sandwich was four bucks and I'm craving it as I write this.   I might go back tonight.  Now, when I got to Watts  and I go often - LocoL will be my spot.

A local chef, Nancy Silverton, was at LocoL Monday afternoon and she raved about the hamburger and the chicken sandwich, but also about the concept. "This is delicious. I applaud Roy This is really something very special for our city."    

Inside, Roy Choi beamed when he saw a reporter who has covered Watts for 25 years.  They did a hard double-clutch handshake and - to the naysayers who doubted he could ever open on 103rd Street - he triumphantly roared  "Fuck 'em! Fuck 'em." 

It was the most beautiful restaurant opening I have ever attended.  And as tasty and healthy as the food is, LocoL is about location, location, location.

Man, 46, Shot To Death Monday Night at 53rd Street and Compton Avenue

A 46-year-old man was shot and killed late Monday night as he was in the park at 53rd Street and Compton Avenue .  The victim, William Tyrone Moss, was shot in the back at least once at the Slauson Multipurpose Center at 11:08 p.m., and transported to USC Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. 

Anyone with information on the killing can call the LAP Newton Division at (323) 846-6547  

Appeals Court To Review Vindictive Prosecution Claim by Cleamon "Big Evil" Johnson's Lawyers, 3 Murder Charges Could Be Dropped

The California Court of Appeals will review a motion by defense lawyers of Cleamon "Big Evil" Johnson that argues their client is a victim of vindictive prosecution, a claim that if ruled in his favor would drop three of the five murder charges against the 89 Family Swan Bloods gang member.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta,  who is presiding over the case, had ruled against the motion in September, but the Court of Appeals agreed to review it, a decision that thrilled Johnson and his attorneys Robert Sanger and Victor Salerno

"This was very, very  good news," said Salerno.  He downplayed  any significance that the prosecution had asked for an extra week last Thursday to present their written case to the appeals court which is now due Dec. 18.  The defense will have an opportunity to respond to the prosecution's argument and the two sides could meet at the Ronald Reagan State Building to present their cases in February.  

According to a piece in the Yale Law Review,  legal "vindictiveness" does not refer to a prosecutor’s ill feeling toward, or even his desire to harm, a defendant. Rather, wrote Doug Lieb, a law clerk for the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, "As defined by the Supreme Court,vindictiveness means that a prosecutor has retaliated against a defendant for the exercise of a legal right, denying his/her due process."  

Johnson spent more than 13 years on death row in San Quentin for the unrelated 1991 double murder of Donald Ray Loggins and Payton Beroit that he and co-defendant Michael "Fat Rat" Allen were found guilty of in 1997. That conviction was overturned in 2011 by the California Supreme Court which ruled that a juror, leaning toward acquittal, was wrongly removed by judge Charles E. Horan.

Johnson and Allen were sent back to the Los Angeles Men's Central Jail for a retrial  As they prepared to retry that 1991 case, the district attorney's office, aided by LAPD detectives,  set out to find additional cases to pin on Johnson.. They were given the luxury of time by the defendant's decision to waive their rights to a speedy trial  and the many subsequent delays in the case  LAPD detectives scoured the California penal system looking for inmates willing to testify against the man who is among the most famous gang members in the city's history.  

In addition to the two men - Payton Beroit and Donald Ray Loggins - shot to death at a car wash in 1991, the district attorney's office now alleges Georgia Denise "Nece" Jones, Albert Sutton and Tyrone Mosley were all killed or ordered killed by Johnson.  While Johnson was in Ironwood State Prison, Jones was shot and killed June 12, 1994 at 87th Place and Wadsworth Avenue in the 89 Family Swan neighborhood. Sutton was also killed in that neighborhood.  Mosley was shot and killed in September 15, 1991 on 97th Street and McKinley Avenue, a 97 East Coast Crips neighborhood.

Johnson, acting as his own lawyer,  was previously tried on the Mosley killing in 1998.. The result was a hung jury, well in his favor. 

If the court grants the vindictive prosecution appeal, Johnson and Allen would still face a trial on the original double murder case.  However, that case was not a ":slam 'dunk" and relied much on the testimony of one Freddie "FM" Jelks, himself a gang member facing prison who was killed many years ago in an unrelated incident on the west side.. 

Earlier in court, Johnson' lawyers sought to have Jelks' recorded testimony kept from being played back in court. Johnson's lead attorney Sanger, even threatened  - or joked  - he would go "Clint Eastwood" on an empty witness stand, a reference to the actor grilling an imaginary President Obama sitting on a chair at the 2012 Republican Convention 

Last year, Johnson told a visitor the extra charges were "bullshit." .    

"It's just more bullshit to keep me locked up, keep a trial going," said Johnson who is back in the regular high power section of the jail, after nearly a year in a special, segregated cell, (not for his own safety).  "They think when I get out, I'm going to go on some rampage. And the police tell people that. Man, I just want to be free. I'm someone who could help stop this violence."

Johnson claims to be a changed man. He told a visitor recently " I am not the same person I was when I went in here. I'm not Big Evil. I'm Cleamon Johnson."

"Have you ever heard of Dr. Bruce Banner?" the visitor asked him, referring to the Hulk's alter ego.

He broke into a gigantic laugh, "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

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Man Stabbed To Death Wednesday Morning in Highland Park, Two Female Suspects Sought

A male Hispanic was stabbed to death early Wednesday morning, possibly by two female Hispanics, the LAPD said today.  The man, said to be between 20 and 25 years old, was pronounced dead by paramedics near the intersection of Figueroa Street and Avenue 59 shortly before 2:30 a.m.. The two suspects may have fled in a black Dodge Charger.

Anyone with information can call the LAPD Northeast Division at ( 323) 344-5701

The New Book "Sprung" Tells The Riveting Story of the Legendary South L.A. Gambler Kev Mac

"Is it wrong to gamble or only to lose?" - Sky Masterson in "Guys and Dolls"

If Damon Runyon, the brilliant story teller of Broadway's gamblers, was alive and stepping in our town,, five would get you ten he be hanging out with Kev Mac, the most over-the-top dice shooter ever to come from the streets of South Los Angeles' deadly and intoxicating street gang world.

But, since Runyon's writing skills have dramatically diminished since his death 69 years today,  it was up to Kev Mac to pen his own stories and the result is the just-published "Sprung; Memoirs of a Legendary Gambler", 36 fascinating tales of a dice-throwing life winning and losing millions in the casinos of Las Vegas and in the backyards of south-central.

Kev Mac, 47  paints an often-thrilling - shooting dice with $52,000 at stake and winning  - and often-agonizing - too broke to buy gasoline - portrait of his life as a gambler. He talks about how his addiction was like that of an alcoholic where he would get the shakes when he didn't gamble and the only cure  - the equivalent of trembling drunk taking a drink - was throwing the dice.

Kev Mac,  a full fledged member of one of the country's most notorious street gangs, the Rollin' 60s Crips, writes his first taste of the gambling life came at age 12, when an older guy from the neighborhood, Chipper, known for his skill with the old Intellivision baseball game, invited him to his house at 57th and Harcourt to play a game. Kev Mac won and  Chipper's friends fell out laughing at him. Infuriated, Chipper demanded to bet  Kev $20 he would win the rematch.  In Sprung's first chapter,  "A Gambler In The Making",  he describes his reaction.   "Twenty dollars?!" I asked in my Dennis the Menace voice. "You've got a deal".

You know what happened.  Kev Mac gambling career had started out with a win. As he writes "Not only did this event spark the great "Kev vs. Chipper" games, it also introduced me to the seedy world of serious gambling."

But, it was  nine years years later, at age, 21, when his father took him to the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas when the love affair - or pure infatuation - with dice began. Though the trip was a financial loser, it changed Kev Mac's life.  On the ride back to Los Angeles he says his "competitive nature came to the forefront and my 'I can't be defeated' attitude was born." 

He had been defeated at the Stardust, but he was determined to get even.  "It's just like the streets," he explains. "When a guy beats you up, you gotta go back and get even. "

Kev Mac, proud Rollin' 60s Crip, often wearing their symbolic blue Seattle Mariners cap with an  emblazoned "S" ( for, in his case, 60s) would fearlessly - or blindly - cross  gang boundaries to attend crap games, even if they were in Bloods-dominated areas, most often in Rollin 20s Bloods hood.

Not only would he have to contend with rival gang members  the LAPD was a constant  threat. 

Whereas Sky Masterson, and his cronies Nathan Detroit, Nicely NIcely Johnson and  Harry the Horse had to deal with Lt.  Brannigan, Kev Mac and company faced a far more perilous threat, LAPD's hard chargin CRASH units.  In one story set on Brynhurst - the Rollin's 60s most notorious street -   he write of how the police would often disrupt the craps games.  "Police officer from the 77th Street Division were always turnt up,. speeding down the blocc, jumping out with their pistols aimed at us. How's a brother 'spose to roll a seven with a nine pointed at this head?"

The Six-Oh life is peppered throughout. This has to be the only book on gambling that has a chapter that begins with "While awaiting trial for a home invasion robbery in the gang module of the L.A. County jail, I turned to spades betting. "   Kev Mac did some years for that robbery which was at the home of former  NBA player Benoit Benjamin.

When he  got out, he amped up his bets. Many times Kev threw the dice with $52,000 on the table. Often he won. But, like the classic addict, he could rarely walk away form the table

"I won millions and I lost millions," he said as he looked out last week at the old Summit Field baseball diamond in Ladera Heights where he played left field as a kid.  "I was constantly fighting myself, not only after I lost a bet, but after I won one. I'd want more. And lose? I couldn't accept to lose. I'd be up tens of thousands and start to lose it and try and get it back and lost it all. Lotta times my life was a nightmare"

Through much of it, Kev had a full time job as a school bus driver, making $10 an hour. But, the cash he had on hand was no bus driver money. "I had cash stashed under the mattress, in pillowcases, even in the Encyclopedia Britannica." 

When the times were good, and when Kev was single, he had to have a female escort and Las Vegas was loaded with hookers. Kev Mac eloquently explains the difference between an expensive hooker and a moderately price one – their purse. "A thousand dollar pussy and a hundred dollar pussy is the same thing. One might have a Luis Vuitton purse and the other a Mary Kaye purse, but that's about it.  I've had a lot of good times with both." 

Lots of those good times were courtesy of his sports heroes and the money he won betting on them  He cites John Elway, Steve Young, Brett Favre and Warren Moon as his biggest money makers  But, on one notable occasion Moon let him down after building him up

He writes of a chapter where he took Shana, the mother of his son, to Vegas for a getaway and some sports betting. The football game he bet on – a famous 1993 playoff game between Moon's Houston Oilers and the Buffalo Bills started out wonderfully.  The Oilers were ahead 35-3 in the second half and Kev promised to buy her anything she wanted.  Shana pointed to a huge stuff lion with a $700 price tag. He nodded.

"Are you really gonna buy me a $700 stuffed animal?", Shana asked.

"I'll buy you whatever you want."

Then the gridiron horror began for Kev. The Bills mounted probably the greatest comeback in NFL playoff history winning in overtime 41-38. Suffice to say, the rest of the trip didn't go so well.

That game was 22 years ago. Kev quit throwing dice in 2012, but he still bets on sports. He shows off  the winning ticket of a Nov. 19 when he won $9,000 on football games

Still, that money is long gone.

"It's almost like I'm not happy til i'm broke. I have that trait of most gamblers. I'm greedy. I'm enjoying the lifestyle, but then I'm not enjoying the life style.  it's really fun and sad at the same time." 

To buy "Sprung" check this link. The book is only $11 and it might just save you thousands at the crap table. 

http://www.amazon.com/Sprung-Memoirs-Legendary-Kev-Mac/dp/0692540172/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1449602972&sr=8-1&keywords=sprung++kev+mac