Recent Shootings Evoke Memories of Two Years Ago
By Susan Motander
Published: Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
In the November of 2007 a spate of violence began in Monrovia, Duarte and the unincorporated area adjacent to the cities. It continued with two murders in January 2008. In February 2008 a joint anti-gang task force was formed. As a result, violence seemed to have declined substantially. Sgt. Tom Loy of the Monrovia Police Department said “Violence has been way down this year,” noting that until recently there had been only one shooting in the city itself.
Perhaps one of the reasons the shootings of two years ago seem more recent is that throughout 2009 there were new developments in those old cases. In March of this year two individuals were charged with the January 26, 2008 murder of Sammantha Salas. The suspects are Rayshawn and Nickleis Blackwell. They lived in the house on Sherman in front of which Sanders Rollins was murdered in January 2008.
The Monrovia Redevelopment Agency (MRA) purchased that house in March of this year as well. The house has been leveled and the city has “land banked” the property until the market improves according to Kevin Obrien of the MRA. At the time to city pointed to the fact that every since the shooting, the house had been the focus of gang activity.
On December 18 of this year, Jimmy Santana had his most recent court appearance. Santana, an alleged Monrovia gang member, was accused of shooting Daniel Graham on January 12, 2008 in the 2500 block of Peck Road. This is in the unincorporated area south of Monrovia. Press reports of this hearing again brought the earlier violence to mind.
And on the same day that Santana had his court appearance, in an unrelated matter, Judge Daniel Yaffee issued a preliminary injunction against two local gangs, the Du-Roc Crips and Monrovia Nuevo Varrio (MNV). According to Monrovia’s official web site the “injunction specifies that the identified members of the two gangs cannot congregate in public, drink alcohol, unlawfully possess weapons or cause graffiti inside of, or within 100 yards of, a “safety zone” that covers specific portions of the City and adjacent unincorporated County area – from Mountain Avenue on the east to Fifth Avenue on the west, and from Live Oak Avenue on the south to Foothill Boulevard on the north.” In addition it places a curfew on adult gang members from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Those under 18 are on curfew starting at 8 p.m.
Violations of the injunction are misdemeanors as are any violations of court orders. In order for the injunction to be enforced the members must be served with notice of it. Members of the gangs are in the process of being served with that notice according to Loy.
All of this press notification may make it seem that there has been a great deal more violence than has actually been occurring.
Three recent shootings also reminded many of that earlier violence. There were two separate shootings on December 15 and another on December 27.
On December 15 there was a shooting in the 100 block of Los Angeles Street at approximately 5:30 p.m. No one was injured in this drive by shooting, but the building in front of which several people were standing, was hit.
Just after 8 p.m. on the same evening two people were shot in the 300 block of Colorado, near the corner with California. This was the incident in which Gentile was fatally wounded. A woman identified only as his girlfriend was shot in the foot, and was treated at a local hospital and released. The shooters are believed by law enforcement to be members of MNV. Gentile had a web page on which he identified himself as a white supremacist.
Then just two days after Christmas a man was wounded in a in what may be a gang related shotgun shooting at the corner of Beckville and Broderick Avenue, an area adjacent to the safe zone created in the injunction. The man wounded was a 21 year old Monrovian who was hospitalized which non-life-threatening injuries. According to a sheriff’s official their gang investigators are looking into the possibility that the shooting was gang-related.
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