To the Rescue : Volunteer Is Honored for Saving Girl During Gang Shooting

When gang gunfire blasted across a Boyle Heights school playground last month, one third-grader stood frozen in terror while her classmates dropped to the asphalt.

Playground volunteer Ricardo Alvarez didn’t hesitate. Alvarez bounded to the girl’s rescue, taking a shot in the elbow as he knocked her out of harm’s way.

For his efforts on Sept. 19, Alvarez, 21, is to receive a proclamation today from Councilman Richard Alatorre and the Los Angeles City Council, which is commending him “for his bravery and life-risking effort.”

“I don’t feel like a hero,” Alvarez said Thursday, his left arm still in a sling. “I don’t know what a hero is. But I would do it again, sacrifice myself, if I had to.”

Witnesses said Alvarez’s actions broke a trance of terror that had paralyzed 10-year-old Elena Villegas, a student at the Utah Street Elementary School east of downtown Los Angeles. Elena was the only child among 60 to 70 who didn’t duck in the midst of the cross-fire from two rival gangs.

“I was nervous,” Elena said Thursday. “Right when he was coming toward me, he got shot.”

“If it weren’t for him, very likely that child would have been struck,” said third-grade teacher Paul Urenia, who was on the playground that afternoon in his role as one of the coordinators of the after-school program, L.A.’s Best.

Alvarez, who attended the school and grew up in the Aliso Village housing project which surrounds it, was among a half-dozen adults supervising softball, handball and kickball games when the shooting broke out about 5 p.m. Alvarez, Urenia said, has regularly volunteered for several years to play with children in the program.

To another after-school worker who was there--Anthony Rodriguez, a 24-year-old Cal State L.A. senior--the shooting represents a worsening of an already tragic situation in the neighborhood: “Shooting is an everyday part of life here, but the gangs always had respect for the playground and the kids.”

In a two-year period ending last spring, police statistics show that gang violence in the neighborhood claimed at least a dozen lives. Los Angeles Police Department Detective Scott Shepherd, who is investigating the schoolyard shooting incident, said: “It’s happening more and more that innocent people are getting shot.”

Principal Dee Dee Mynatt said, “Unfortunately, my students have to live with (gang shootings) all the time, but normally it is not at school.”

After the incident, Alvarez said he felt like shooting the gang members who were responsible. “I was pretty mad,” said Alvarez, now a worker in a railroad car recycling factory in Colton. “But my girlfriend talked to me, said: ‘Don’t do nothing stupid.’ ”

When he was younger, Alavarez said, he belonged for a time to an Eastside gang. “But I’m older and wiser now.”