Gangland Violence Comes to Dodger StadiumApril 12, 2011 - by Jack Dunphy
Pajamas Media.com
It was L.A.'s gang culture that killed trendy Westwood Village when a 27-year-old was shot in 1988. Will a recent brutal attack kill a legendary L.A. stadium too?
LINK(excerpt)
In a big city, most crime victims suffer in obscurity. In Los Angeles last year, police investigated 21,241 violent crimes, including 297 homicides, yet who outside their own circle of family and friends could name even a single one of those victims?
But sometimes a crime occurs in such a manner or in such a place that it comes to gain far wider significance than one victim’s misfortune. In 1964, Kitty Genovese was raped and stabbed to death outside her Bronx apartment. Many of her neighbors heard her screaming, yet no one came to her aid and only a few even went as far as to call the police. Her murder is still cited as being symbolic of large cities where people remain unknown to their neighbors and indifferent to their troubles.
In 1988, Karen Toshima, a 27-year-old graphic artist, was shot to death in Westwood Village, an area of shops, restaurants, and movie theaters adjacent to the UCLA campus. Toshima was walking on the sidewalk with a friend when two groups of rival gang members squared off. One of the gangsters pulled a gun and fired two rounds, missing his intended target but hitting Toshima in the head. She died the next day.
Toshima was one of the 736 people murdered in Los Angeles that year, a time when gang violence was on the rise and no one, it seemed, knew what to do about it. It’s fair to say that her death was a catalyst to the battle against L.A.’s gangs, whose violence had until then been confined to the city’s less upscale neighborhoods.
Will Bryan Stow be the Karen Toshima of 2011?
On March 31, Stow, a 42-year-old man from Santa Cruz, Calif., went to L.A.’s Dodger Stadium to attend the opening-day game between the Dodgers and his favorite team, the San Francisco Giants. Near the end of the game, apparently after assessing the behavior of some of the people in the stands, Stow sent a text message to a relative to say he feared for his safety. A paramedic by trade, Stow is a man we may presume doesn’t frighten easily, and indeed his fears were tragically borne out. After the game, as he and two companions walked through the parking lot in search of a taxi, they were set upon by two men who pushed Stow to the ground before beating and kicking him into a coma.
===========================================================
Friend of the victim who attended the game with him was on ESPN's "Mason and Ireland" in LA on Monday morning.
LINK TO ESPN STORY(excerpt)
A friend who was with the San Francisco Giants fan who was brutally beaten on Opening Day described a scene that went from "intimidating to hostile."
Appearing on the "Mason and Ireland" show Monday on 710 ESPN Radio in Los Angeles, Corey Maciel said that approaching Dodger Stadium in Giants gear that day was not comfortable from the get-go.
"It was pretty hostile just walking up to the stadium -- it was intimidating, to say the least," he said. "There were a lot of Dodgers fans angry that we were there. We got things thrown at us the whole time we were there -- peanuts, hot dogs, wrappers -- which we also expected."
But the hostility really escalated after the game.
"We were walking out and the mood definitely changed from intimidating to hostile once we got into the parking lot," Maciel said. "We were actually out there, we were saying great game, shaking some Dodgers fans hands. There were some that were yelling profanities, and just being rowdy. That's how it started.
"We were honestly just trying to get out of there with our heads down and our tails between our legs because it turned from intimidating to hostile and we were uncomfortable and wanted out of there."
=========================================================================
Sadly, this is not a one-time situation at Chavez Latrine. A guy is currently doing 50-to-life for shooting Giants fans to death outside a Dodger's game in 2003. Another Dodger's "fan" stabbed a Giants fan at the home opener at the Latrine in 2009.
Anytime the freeway series is on, count on idiots from LA to come down and start fights, run their shit, and generally be assholes. Go to Dodger Stadium wearing the opposing teams gear and you can pretty much count on having shit thrown on you, threatened, etc. I saw it just before I left with the Freeway Series. Dipshit gang-bangers were yelling, talking smack, and throwing things at an 80-year old woman (I knew her). Real brave of ya, ****ers.
Oh, and Frank McCourt? This shit is TOTALLY on you. This is why you can't even sell out a home opener against a divisional rival (for the record, there were 44,000 at the game that day--Dodger Stadium capacity is 56,000.
Dodger fan is Raider fan is Laker fan is a thug who needs his ass kicked.
