The Valley of the Shadow of Death

by Kermit Alexander

  Citizens bemoaned the loss of their neighborhood, their security, and their freedom to walk the streets. “It used to be just a beautiful neighborhood,” one woman said, “in which you could walk around any time of the night.” Now people went to the market only on the “buddy system,” so as not to leave themselves alone and vulnerable. Complaints included the fact that “senior citizens literally run to get off the street before dark,” and that “many of the businesses of the South Central Los Angeles area operate during normal business hours with locked doors.”

  Black Los Angeles was a mix of folks who came west to be free of Jim Crow. But these inner-city residents, enslaved by the fear of violent crime, experienced a sad déjà vu as old threats were reborn. “Don’t be out after dark.” “Don’t get caught on the wrong side of tracks.” “Don’t look ’em in the eye.” “Just cross the street if you see ’em coming.”

  Now, beaten down and terrorized by their own youth, the people of South Central feared black boys with baggy pants as they once had white men in pointed hoods.

  Jesse Jackson would even admit that when he hears footsteps he’s relieved when he sees a white face, then followed it up with “After all we have been through. Just to think we can’t walk down our own streets, how humiliating.”

  Yes, how pathetic, for generations we fight for freedom, and when we get it, we imprison ourselves. And my family, my mother, who had endured so much, paid the price.

  My mind thrashed. A wave of fury crested.

  More driving. Calm, I told myself, as I drove. I must remain calm for my family. I cannot let them down again. I cannot go down in a blaze of road rage.

  Gordon was silent, brooding. I tried to refocus on the radio, as if the reports were just the same old accounts of violence in South Central, the same old reports to which we’d all become desensitized.

  I could no longer fake detachment. No distance existed. The stories were all personal, immediate. They were mine. Now anything touching upon crime and violence in the city of Los Angeles was ours. Unbelievably, all of this was about us, my family, me. Those same old accounts were no longer about unknown statistical others.

  As we drove from the airport east toward South Central, the raw emotion consumed us.

  Our past lives no longer existed.

  My brother and I broke down.

  This cycle of disbelief, quick flashes of detachment, followed by stark grief, became its own reality, claustrophobic, relentless.

  I drove in a sort of fugue, unaware of traffic, stoplights, street signs.

  Over a hundred degrees, the sun simply washed everything out, leaving behind a scorched gray.

  What willpower it took just to function as a zombie.

  The city was harsh, indifferent. It did not care.

  I kept going, right at the speed limit. I was driving like a kind of automaton, fulfilling a duty, completing chores, one after the other, death chores, the tasks of identifying the dead, burying the dead, winding down lives.

  Back to the furnace, back to the roads. I never really noticed I was driving, nor paid attention. It just kind of happened.

  At this point I felt like I had been driving for a hundred years.

  Back to the radio.

  Next report: earlier that day, Eighth District Councilman Robert Farrell submitted a motion to the Los Angeles City Council demanding that Police Chief Daryl F. Gates report on the steps being taken to curb the violence plaguing South Central.

  Farrell was a longtime family friend with whom I had spoken shortly after the murders. Prior to our conversation he had been angry about the decline of South Central. Now he was livid.

  Farrell, like Mayor Bradley and me, was a black graduate of UCLA with southern roots, born in Natchez, Mississippi, in the thirties. Farrell’s council district included many areas of South Central, and he seized on the issue of crime as the most pressing for his constituents. He was at once a harsh critic of the police—blasting the use of the infamous “choke hold” that had resulted in the deaths of several black arrestees—and a fervent advocate of the need for more police presence in his troubled district.

  Farrell, waging what he termed a “personal war on crime and violence,” proposed a special property tax on South Central residents to pay for additional police, a municipal lottery to finance an anticrime unit, and the closing of Nickerson Gardens and other crime-ridden public housing projects.

  Comprising fifty-eight square miles and more than six hundred thousand residents, South Central was a huge part of Los Angeles. However, Farrell said, because the neighborhood was 80 percent black and home to what he called “the working poor,” it was being underserved by the police. Had the twenty shootings of the past two weeks “occurred in a more affluent area of our city,” Farrell said, “the police response to community concerns would have been immediate. We simply ask for the city standard of service: a police presence sufficient to deal with the nature and the magnitude of the current crime problem.”

  Farrell’s conclusion was then read over the air. “I therefore move that the chief of police be directed to report within fifteen days on the police effort taken with the South Bureau area to combat the recent upsurge in gangland-style shootings.” Finally, Farrell called for “the identification of recent parolees who may be involved in these activities, so that appropriate efforts may be made to immediately revoke their paroles.”

  As my brother and I listened, we realized that our case had struck a nerve, jarring both citizen and politician from their mundane acceptance of street violence, the turning of a blind eye toward black-on-black crime.

  The case was coming to stand for something bigger than just one family’s plight.

  Our tragedy was a symbol of all that had gone wrong in the inner city. The hopes, the promises of the Great Migration, the dreams of finding opportunity out west all felt like a joke.

  Like thousands of other black families, we had fled the horrors of the South for the bloodshed of South Central.

  8

  I NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL

  FOLLOWING THE DRIVE, Gordon and I finally reunited with the rest of the family. It was the first time since the shooting that the surviving family members could speak together in private. We met at my sister Daphine’s, not far from where my mother lived.

  With the killers at large, and me being watched by the police as a “person of interest,” the family would have to band together. Like so many times before—in Louisiana, in Watts—we would have only each other. By huddling together, unbreakable, with their large numbers and fierce reputations, my ancestors had withstood Klan attacks in the South, and my family, gang assaults in the projects. Once again our family was forced to form a tight circle and fight.

  The family had been blown apart. Lives filled with routine commutes, bills, and work schedules ceased to exist. With the passage of one early morning everything changed. Just hours ago all was intact. Madee was drinking coffee and watering plants. Dietra would soon have risen to go to work at the department store. Daphine’s son Damon and my sister Geraldine’s son Damani soundly slept in their grandmother’s house. Now all four were gone, simply no longer existed, and that was something none of us could comprehend, nor accept.

  Our past lives were over, a new identity branded upon us: from now on, we were all victims of violent crime. For me, who craved strength and control, the title “victim” was sickening.

  As the family reconnected, we began reconstructing the events of those early morning hours.

  Upon hearing the gunshots and screams, my brother Neal ran into the front bedroom where Dietra, Damani, and Damon slept. As he entered he heard a shot and ducked. He then realized that the killer was not shooting at him, but facing toward and firing at my sister Dietra.

  Neal saw the man only from behind. He held a rifle. Neal jumped on the man’s back and took him down to the floor, where they wrestled and fought and rolled around.

  As Neal knocked the man to the floor the rifle was jarred loo
se. The man then got to his knees, retrieved the rifle, stood up, and used the weapon to hit Neal in the face. After struggling with the intruder, Neal heard no more shots.

  Neal described the shooter as a well-built black man. He said he was sweating and clammy.

  Following the struggle, Neal ran out the back door of the house. The man followed him out. Neal hid behind some apartments located directly behind my mother’s home. From his hiding place he could not see the back door, and did not know if any other individuals ever fled the house.

  At some later point Neal returned to the house and found my nephew Ivan still alive. Neal then called me and the police. Shortly after his call the police arrived. Neal was taken to the station and questioned.

  After Neal gave his account, Ivan told us how he was awakened by gunshots. He saw Neal run toward the hallway. Ivan then took cover in the closet. As Ivan hid he glimpsed a black man holding a gun with a long barrel in the hallway.

  Ivan said he heard a lot of wrestling. Once the shooting stopped he peeked through the crack of the closet door, saw Neal, and slowly emerged from his hiding place. He described cautiously walking about the house as he and Neal witnessed the aftermath.

  Ivan came out of the house screaming, “They killed my grandmother! They killed my grandmother! My grandmother doesn’t hurt anyone!”

  Neal then took Ivan to the police station, where a couple of officers questioned him.

  Neal and Ivan both reported that the gunman never said a word, just came in shooting.

  As we listened, I tried to console Neal. He cursed himself for having slept too long. He kept stressing that he could have saved them, had he just acted sooner.

  I winced, suffering the same guilt. But I kept quiet. I didn’t want to make things worse. I just tried to comfort him.

  I told him he was a hero. He did all he could to save Dietra’s life. He saved Ivan’s life. He forced the gunman to flee.

  No use. Neal remained despondent.

  Later in the day, fearing a nervous breakdown, Neal told the family: “I need to go to the hospital.”

  To this day, he cannot talk about that morning.

  Everyone expressed their relief that Ivan was alive. But I caught the first signs of his guilt, too. Four died in the house. He survived by hiding. This would haunt him.

  Hearing Neal’s and Ivan’s confessions of guilt, I felt it like never before—that insidious and poisonous regret that jerks one awake in the middle of the night. The endless cycles of what could have been, obsessing over how the smallest counteractions could have changed everyone’s lives. Why hadn’t I been there? How could I have let them all down?

  But aside from the questions of what happened, and why, something more immediate confronted us: our protection and survival.

  Someone tried to wipe out everyone within the house, and no one had a clue who did it, or what they wanted. The killers were free and on the streets. Did they intend to finish the job?

  For protection and support the family stayed together at Daphine’s. My sister Joan and I bought guns.

  We all wondered, did the killers know where we were? Did they know where Daphine lived? Were we being watched or followed?

  That night, the men stayed in a den downstairs, with the women and children upstairs. Joan insisted on standing sentry by the front door. No one was going to kill any more children, she vowed.

  No one was to stand in front of the windows. It made you a target for a drive-by shooting.

  No one slept.

  Dark thoughts and wailings haunted the night.

  Some half expected the departed to return, to walk through the door and explain that the whole thing was just a tragic mistake. Over and over the bereaved swore that this in fact happened. They saw Madee, she just kept walking around the corner, standing there, but then disappearing when they spoke or tried to engage her. Same with Dietra, Damani, and Damon, they were there, they could feel it.

  Late into the night sleep teased us, but was always broken by horror, visions, shrieks of disbelief.

  “It’s not fair! It’s not fair!” a female voice screamed into the night. After all Madee had done for us. After all she endured. It could not be. She was not gone.

  And the boys, and Dietra. Parents shouldn’t outlive children, nothing more unjust than death out of order.

  Nothing ripped at me like the sound of my sisters crying out in despair.

  Again, “It’s not fair!” echoed through the house, followed by shrieks. “Why, Lord? Why?”

  The sounds of traffic, footsteps, voices from the street, all sent waves of alarm through the house.

  Everyone replayed Ivan’s description: the sound of screams, gunshots, and shattered glass.

  The family was catatonic.

  No one went to work in the morning. No one wanted to leave the house. No one wished to be left alone.

  * * *

  One day after the shooting, the police had no suspects and were at a loss as to motive. But they caught their first break.

  Two eyewitnesses came forward.

  Lashawn Driver, seventeen, told the police that she lived across the street from the Alexander house, and knew Damon and Damani. Prior to 8 a.m. on August 31, she was outside, in front of her house, when she saw two black men, a “clear-skinned guy [with a light complexion] and dark guy,” walking from the direction of Main Street toward the Alexander house. The dark guy’s hair was “in a little natural,” while the clear guy’s hair was “braided.” The dark guy was about five foot seven to five foot nine and muscular, wearing a dark blue shirt and dark blue pants. The clear guy had a light complexion and a medium build, and wore a red and tan horizontal shirt and light tan pants.

  Driver then went inside her house.

  Within five minutes after entering the house, she heard shooting. She then went to her front porch to look out. She said several shots were fired, then there was a pause, followed by more shooting. During the time of the pause she saw the dark guy appear from the rear of the Alexander house and then walk down the driveway along the west side of the home. He did not appear to be carrying anything in his hands. Then after the second series of shots she saw the clear guy come running down the same driveway carrying a rifle. Both men headed east toward Main Street.

  Venus Webb, who also lived across the street from the Alexanders, heard “many shots,” and then looked out her living room window. After the shots stopped she saw a black male with “clear, bright skin” and tan or beige clothing walking “a little fast” toward Main Street. She saw him get into a van, which then pulled away very fast before turning right onto Main.

  * * *

  Dr. William Sherry, a deputy medical examiner for Los Angeles County, conducted the autopsies on the bodies of Ebora Alexander, Dietra Alexander, Damani Garner, and Damon Bonner. For all four of the deceased, the cause of death was “gunshot wound to the head.”

  Peggy Fiderio, a latent fingerprint expert for the Los Angeles Police Department’s scientific identification division, compared the fingerprints collected from the Alexander house with those of its residents.

  She found that many of the twenty-one prints collected from the scene matched the prints taken of Neal, Ivan, and the four deceased. However, several prints, categorized as “identifiable”—containing sufficient detail of loops, whorls, and ridges to make a match—did not come from any of the family members whose prints were rolled.

  In a house trafficked by many people, this did not suggest the remaining prints belonged to the killers. But if the prints matched to anyone without legitimate access to the house, this would provide strong circumstantial evidence of guilt.

  The full palm print lifted from the storage trunk in the front bedroom did not match to any family member.

  * * *

  From the evidence before them, the crime scene investigation, the autopsy, the victim interviews, and the eyewitnesses, RHD detectives reconstruct the crime:

  In the early morning, the killers approach the
Alexander house. One is carrying a rifle, which he conceals in a light blue jacket. As they reach the front porch and prepare to enter the house—with his back to the street and no longer concerned with detection—the man removes the weapon and drops the jacket to the ground, to the left of the front door.

  The windows are not barred, the front door is open, and the screen door is unlocked. Mrs. Alexander is not living in fear. She expects no intruders.

  The killers enter. They hear motion in the rear of the house. The shooter walks through the living room, between the couch and coffee table. Then into the dining room, he walks past the table, through the doorway, into the kitchen.

  Now he turns to his left. Ebora Alexander stares in shock. He aims, fires, fires, and fires again. Two shots hit her in the head, blowing away the top and side of her skull. The third shot goes through the neck. After leaving her body, the bullets continue their flight, ripping the curtains, boring through windows and walls.

  The killer is a good shot, with good hand-eye coordination. This is not his first time. He will have a criminal record, perhaps some kind of specialized weapons training. The three shots hit in rapid succession. The position of her injuries and the bullet trajectories prove that all three wounds are struck before the body hits the floor.

  Leaving the kitchen, the killer returns to the front of the house. The time it takes him to walk the hallway explains the break in the shooting described by the witness.

  The darker-skinned individual likely leaves the home at this point through the rear door, as he was seen by the eyewitness walking down the driveway from the back of the house prior to the second volley of shots.

  The shooter now enters the front bedroom. Dietra Alexander, awakened by the shots, sits up in her bed. She screams. Three more direct hits: two to the head, one to the chest. One shot each to the heads of the two sleeping children, Damon and Damani. Again, the killer is coldly efficient, the bullet-trajectory evidence proving that a standing shooter pointed the weapon downward, firing at the prone victims.