Pomona Reels After 6 Slayings in 2 Days

By MAYRAV SAAR and NICHOLAS RICCARDI

Jan. 23, 1997 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Pomona is a city of fragile hopes.

This blue-collar town on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County took comfort in a dramatic drop in its homicide rate last year, and hoped that in 1997 it might taper off to a still-chilling ratio of one slaying per 10,000 residents. A local newspaper ran a story at the start of this week marking the fact that there were no homicides in the first three weeks of the year.

Those dreams were shaken Wednesday with six Pomona residents--including four teenagers--slain in an unprecedented rampage of violence in little more than 24 hours.

“It’s cast a very dark and dubious shadow over our city,” said Mayor Eddie Cortez.

That shadow made its way into police stations, bullet-riddled homes, schools and churches Wednesday, as Pomona grappled to see how much grief and agony 131,000 people can absorb.

Nina Dill summed up the thoughts of many.

“We are leaving,” she said, standing with her husband, the Rev. Ken Dill, in front of the Pathway Church of God--its windows shattered by vandals, its walls scarred by graffiti and fires. “Not just because of the gangs but because we think God is through with us here.”

There were three incidents that brought the death toll to six since Monday.

The Pomona Police Department’s homicide squad of just six bleary-eyed investigators filed in and out of the station Wednesday, trying to bring some reason to what appeared to be unrelated slayings.

“There’s no motive at this time for any of them,” said Sgt. Gordon Jones.

Mayor Cortez owns an auto repair shop, and as he drove around town to various spare parts dealers Wednesday morning “they all asked me: ‘What are you going to do to stop it, mayor?’ My response was very simple: ‘What can I do?’ ”

It started Monday night with a set of gunshots. Police found Edgar Lopez, 16, and Benjamin Rivera, 15, lying dead in a field. They lived as anonymously as they died. Their classmates at nearby Garey High School said they were unaware of the absence of the two students.

It continued Tuesday night. Michael Reed Jr., 15, was visiting at his father’s house in Pomona. He normally stays with his mother. So it was odd that a group of youths knocked on the door at 7:30 and asked for Michael by name.

He headed to the door as his father called from the kitchen: “Mikey, you’re not going anywhere.”

When Michael reached the front door, he saw his visitors, turned and fled back inside. The teenagers chased after him, letting loose a torrent of gunfire inside the house. Michael was peppered with bullets in his bedroom as his father, teenage half sister and 2-year-old baby sister watched.

“I was losing control of him, and I had to get him back,” his father, Michael Reed Sr., said Wednesday afternoon as he stood on the porch outside his single-story, bullet-riddled stucco home. His son had just enrolled in an after-school program for at-risk youths. “He was just starting to turn around.”

“It’s scary now,” the father said. “These kids, they have no respect for anyone. They’ll take a life without thinking about it.” He started to cry. “Part of your life is gone and it doesn’t come back. They don’t understand that.”

The carnage continued less than three hours later, when a group of young men knocked on the door of Armando Valle’s house. Valle’s girlfriend, Stephanie Michelle Contreras, 19, answered. They shot her to death. The killers then burst inside and shot the towering 33-year-old Valle in the head, then killed his friend, Fernando Madrigal, 34.

Wednesday morning, a crowd of about 40 friends and neighbors sat outside the Valle house, munching on tortilla chips, drinking beer and mourning.

“He’s a very nice, lovable guy. How could anything like this happen?” Alejo Maciel said of his friend Valle. He pointed to the crowd of blue-collar mourners. “Do we look like gangbangers to you?”

A 33-year-old construction worker, Valle helped a next-door neighbor build a fanciful gingerbread cottage-style house. His friends repeatedly described him as “righteous.” They also repeatedly predicted that the killers would never be found.

“The police, they don’t care, because we’re Mexicans,” said Frank Cepeda, 66. “You know, it’s another Mexican dying, so what?”

Pomona Police Chief Richard Shaurette scoffed at that. “We’ve had people working almost 24 hours a day,” he said. “We’ve got people going a hundred different directions trying to figure out what’s going on.”

The department has a mixed history. Because of misconduct in an elite police task force, prosecutors had to drop 25 felony charges in 1995.

Cortez said the town appeared to be on the upswing last year, when the number of homicides dropped from 28 to 19, marking the third consecutive decrease.

City leaders Wednesday vowed to take aggressive steps to spread safety through Pomona, even as they admitted that they did not know precisely how to do that.

“I think we have to reach out and find out what’s causing this,” Councilwoman Nell Soto said. “I’m just sick of what I read in the police reports.”

Soto and others said the city needs to provide more structured recreation for the thousands of teenagers who have too much idle time on their hands. School officials said they would study their anti-gang and anti-drug programs--although the school district’s anti-gang classes already start in elementary school.

The city has been struggling to stem the flight of jobs, working with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to purchase a shuttered missile plant and covert it into a viable manufacturing base. But, leaders say, it is hard to get the attention of the powers that be when you’re in Pomona.

Much of the town is a maze of gritty, decayed subdivisions dotted with occasional fast-food outlets. Once a booming citrus town, Pomona in 1910 advertised itself as “The Place of Wealth, Health and Plenty.” But it has fallen far.

The past decade is filled with abandonment: Manufacturers fled the increasingly multicultural city. Defense jobs vanished as the aerospace industry withered. County, state and federal leaders, city officials charge, ignored the blue-collar town sandwiched between prosperous suburbs of Los Angeles and San Bernardino.

As night descended Wednesday, many Pomona residents were instead thinking of the short-term. A police lieutenant wondered where he should deploy his officers. And Mayor Cortez’s thoughts turned to the uncertain future.

He mentioned the possibility that police refused to voice--that the six killings were the opening shots in a gang war.

“I haven’t slept since last night,” Cortez said. “They’re going to even the score.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Pomona at a Glance

The city of Pomona, named for the Roman goddess of fruit, was once renowned as the “Queen of the Citrus.” Today, the fourth-largest city in Los Angeles County is most widely recognized as home to the county fair.

Population: 131,723

Median age: 26.8

Median household income: $32,132 (county median: $34,965)

Median home value: $133,700

Percentage of women employed: 54%

Percentage of men employed: 79%

Ethnic breakdown: Latino, 51%; white, 28%; black, 14%; Asian, 6%

Number of Violent Crimes:

‘92: 2,096

‘93: 2,353

‘94: 1,977

‘95: 1,721