The tall trees and large lawns can hardly camouflage the fact that the Avalon Garden Housing Project lies at the crack-addled nerve center of the city's gang wars.
In the playground, above a mural of five of Snow White's seven dwarfs, someone has scrawled "Avalon Garden Crips," marking the collection of small stucco apartment buildings as turf claimed by a deadly street gang."Los Angeles is like a chameleon," observed Ralph Sutton of Brotherhood Crusade, a social service group. "There are places that seem so serene and peaceful, and just the night before there was bloodletting."
Crime-plagued blocks alternate and sometimes merge with the safer blocks around the housing project, which lies in the heart of the city's violent south-central region. It is not uncommon to find a bullet-scarred crack house next to a well-kept cottage with neatly trimmed bushes and a white wrought-iron fence.
As a kind of war rages for control of the streets, many residents in the mostly working-class black and Hispanic neighborhood have retreated behind barred windows and doors.
But lately, a coalition of community leaders, social workers, business people, church members and civil rights activists have launched a project called "Taking Our Community Back."
Coordinated by Brotherhood Crusade, the program has recruited hundreds of volunteers to walk day and night through a 110-block section of some of the city's worst streets, knocking on doors, handing out literature, painting over graffiti, clearing alleys and confronting drug dealers and gang members.
"We're not going to allow our community to be held hostage," says Danny Bakewell, president and founder of Brotherhood Crusade.
The goal is to take control of the region for the next 30 to 45 days and give residents the motivation and courage to carry on.
The patrols, until now scattered around the neighborhood, began in force over the weekend. Hundreds of men, some responding to a full-page advertisement in a local newspaper, have volunteered to walk the streets.
Police and city officials are cooperating with the organizers and call the effort one of the city's most innovative. Residents also are optimistic.
But Los Angeles County averages more than one gang killing a day, and some people suggest the program, while long on good intentions, may be short on staying power.
Police say a concerted effort is needed to make a dent in crime in the neighborhood, where 52 assaults, 89 burglaries, 37 robberies and 32 auto thefts were reported over last six months. Police did not have murder statistics for the area.
"They're certainly on the right track, but they've got to ignite people in the community to carry it on," said Deputy Chief Bernard Parks, head of the department's anti-gang operations. "Sustaining it and being able to endure are key."
Bakewell acknowledged that the task appears as daunting as the area's alleys at night, but refused to accept negative talk.