Little Michelle Jones Is Dead : Tot scrambled up steps of grandparents’ home too late to avoid gang shooting

The wanton, senseless gang violence that engulfs Southern California claimed yet another young, innocent victim over the weekend.

Little Michelle Jones is dead. Her 14-month life was snuffed out by a spray of gunfire from a passing vehicle. The fatal bullet hit Michelle in the head as she was scrambling up the steps of her grandparents’ home in the Willowbrook area. Her mother and two uncles, who watched in horror, were seriously wounded in the random drive-by shooting by alleged gang members.

Michelle was among 17 people to die in violence in the Los Angeles area over the weekend. To many, her death will be a mere statistic. But imagine the utter helplessness of the child, cut down in the bloom of innocence and life. Any parent can understand the anguish of Michelle’s mother, who will never see her only child pass through those familiar benchmarks of life--the first grade, graduation, a prom and marriage. She says the gunmen who killed her daughter have taken away her reason for living.

The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department has arrested two suspects, both said to be associated with gangs.

Those wounded--Michelle’s mother, Katy Jones, 21, and uncles Albert Jones, 26, and John Paul Jones, 22--were not gang members, authorities said. That’s why the tragedy of Michelle’s senseless murder has shocked the neat, middle-class neighborhood where the Jones family has lived for 33 years. “This is stupid. Stupid. Stupid,” sobbed one unidentified friend.

How many more stupid, tragic murders of young innocent victims will it take before local officials go beyond mouthing platitudes and start putting real time and money into suppressing gangs? Let Michelle’s death not be in vain. If the drive-by shooting of a baby fails to move Angelenos to demand action, what will? Shots on every city block?