Seeking Right, Wrong in Wake of Shooting

The tribute next to the dirty pavement of South Gunther Street in Santa Ana is a sad reminder of a life gone wrong.

A week old now, some of the candles enclosed in tall glasses are still kept burning. Orchids and roses are now faded, but carefully placed within the shrine.

“Rest in Peace Robert G, from your home boy Little Meno,” reads one placard. “Bendiga Nuestro Hogar” (Bless This Place), states another. A third shows a picture of Robert Garcia, 26, surrounded by his buddies, all laughing. “Let Us Always Be Friends,” it says. Another picture shows him with his wife and child. Several others refer to his nickname, “Sly.”

It was on this spot, a dried-out grass strip next to the sidewalk, where Robert Garcia died one afternoon last week.

Santa Ana police say he was one of three gang members who tried to hold up a produce van just around the corner on West Camile Street. But the van’s owner, who parked there daily, apparently had a weapon of his own. Police will only acknowledge for now that “there was an exchange of gunfire of several shots between the suspects and the vendor.”

The vendor was shot in the arm. Garcia, mortally wounded, fled on foot, but finally collapsed some 50 paces down Gunther Street, the spot now enshrined. An irony: Garcia lived on North Gunther, 10 blocks away.

The other two men fled in a vehicle.

In two visits this week to Camile and Gunther, I didn’t find anyone who shared my view that this was a shooting that could have been avoided if the vendor had not been armed. That the produce merchant’s defense of his goods put his own life needlessly at risk.

Others will argue that the produce merchant saved his life by firing his gun. But look how close he came to dying in this exchange of gunfire. Also, he now must live in fear of retaliation; the police will not even release his name for his own safety.

And then, too, what happened cost Robert Garcia his life.

There’s a compelling argument, of course, that Garcia had no one to blame but himself. But the sidewalk tribute to the slain gang member is at least a vivid reminder that the answers of right and wrong in this shooting are not that easy. About the only thing we can all agree on is that everything that happened that afternoon at Camile and Gunther was sad.

It’s a neighborhood of low-income housing, just off busy Harbor Boulevard. Street vendors in this area are prevalent. I came across competing ice cream pushcarts, and even competing produce vans.

Alberro Lopez operates a truck store in front of his house exactly like the man who was shot, and just a block farther east on Camile. He does not worry, he said, that it could just as easily have been him.

“Everyone here knows me,” he said. “No one would shoot me.”

But the other van owner, who was shot, might have felt the same thing.

Neighborhood youngsters told me the wounded van owner felt sorry for them when they didn’t have enough money and let them have candy at a discount, or free. He specialized in tomatoes and rice and green vegetables, but sold soft drinks and sweets. Everybody liked him.

Some told me that the shooting was a rare instance of crime in the neighborhood. Others disagreed.

Margie Araujo, looked at me dumbfounded when I asked about neighborhood crime.

“This is a barrio; it’s what you expect,” she said. “You just live with it, unless you can afford to move out.”

Her own home had been shot at once during a gang-related drive-by shooting, though no one in her family has ever had any ties to a gang.

Araujo’s view of last week’s shooting was typical of area residents: that the robbers deserved to be shot at. She lives directly across from the Garcia sidewalk tribute. Yet she hasn’t bothered to cross the street to view it.

“That young man had options in life,” she said. “This is the option he chose.”

But how open are those options, really?

One afternoon on Camile I picked up words of wisdom from a highly articulate 17-year-old, Heriberto Salgato. His dog was playing in the leaves he was trying to rake. Salgato, a high school senior, wants to be a veterinarian. Salgato heard the shots July 13, the afternoon of the van robbery. He did not know Garcia. But Salgato knows well, he said, the pressure that peers can place on you to join a gang.

“I just thank God I have such loving parents, who have always talked to me about such things,” Salgato said. “I hear the neighbors always yelling at their kids, telling them they’re worthless. These are the kids who grow up and join gangs.”

Salgato is convinced such youngsters join gangs in part as revenge against their parents. Whatever the reasons, gang crime is a potential threat to many neighborhoods like Camile and Gunther.

Santa Ana police gang expert Kevin Ruiz told me recently that gangs affect us all because they finance their activities through crime, primarily robberies and burglaries. Incidents like the one on West Camile. And it’s left to the neighbors to wonder why this happened.

“This can only be seen as bad for us,” said young Salgato. “We’re all placed in danger now.”

Santa Ana police spokesman Raul Luna said the department’s gang detail investigators have been tight-lipped for fear of information coming out that might damage the investigation. But the police expect to have an announcement next week regarding further developments. For now, no arrests have been made.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday and Thursday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 564-1049 or by e-mail at jerry.hicks@latimes.com