GANG WATCH : Murderous Habits

A mother and her baby, an 11-month-old girl, burned to death in a public housing project. They didn’t die because of faulty wiring or a malfunctioning heater. They died, police say, because a gang member threw a firebomb into their apartment to retaliate against an enemy. What will stop this madness?

The firebombing took place past midnight, early Wednesday, at two apartments in the Pueblo del Rio housing project in southeast Los Angeles. The explosions were in retaliation for an earlier shooting that killed a young man and severely wounded his friend. That shooting started after an argument with a gang member. What will it take to stop this escalating cycle of violence?

One apartment was vacant when the explosion signaled trouble. A dozen people were in the other apartment. Ten made it out alive. Two did not. Mother and daughter became just another statistic to Angelenos who have become inured to the violence that is sucking the vitality from too many neighborhoods.

The victims’ neighbors, including another mother and her three small children, cowered under the bed--a familiar drill when they hear gunfire in an area where drive-by shootings and other gang-related mayhem have become almost routine. “When they start killing babies,” that mother said, “You know it’s bad.”

How bad must it get? How many more babies must die? How high must the death toll rise before every person in this region demands that local “leaders” deal with the habitual murdering?