Northeast News
September 23, 2015
It has been a bloody month in Historic Northeast. A month this news-dog is certain most law abiding residents would like to put behind them, along with the accompanying tragedy that’s following it like a black cloud. On Sept. 5th, a mother was charged with the killing of her five year old son. On Sept. 1st, DeAngelo Porchia was shot on his front porch across from Budd Park. Most recently, and probably the most tragic, Marianna Hernandez-Gonzales was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. Driving away from the soccer park with her six children in the car when she got caught up in a rolling gun battle between two rival factions at Ninth and Hardesty. Let’s call it what it is. Two rival gangs.
Sadly, the signs were there that this kind of event was eminent. Following the Sept. 1st shooting, gang tags went up almost immediately on a number of local buildings saying “RIP DLO, SD” in red spray paint with the “187” prominently displayed over three rival gang factions. Then disturbingly, on a garage near Topping and Oakley, a rival gang crossed out the “RIP DLO” with blue spray paint and threw up an “187” tag, promising revenge on the revenge seekers. In gang tag parlance, “187” is the California police code for murder. From that moment forward, vengeance was the order of the day. It was on. Someone was going to pay the price. Didn’t matter when, how, or where. Anyone at the hastily arranged “vigil” knew it was coming when the lead began to fly from across the park and attendees had to hit the dirt.
Yes. The signs were there.
Sadly, someone did pay for his death and her name was Marianna Hernandez-Gonzales, an innocent mother of six kids coming home from a night at the soccer park. Other people are paying too. There are now six kids who will never hear their mother’s voice again. There’s also a mother who doesn’t have a daughter and a boyfriend who doesn’t have the love of his life. They’re paying now, too.
The signs were there, from the shots fired at the vigil to the hastily scrawled gang tags promising revenge all over area buildings. Now a community has questions. AIM4Peace was at the vigil, was any outreach done following the shots fired after the vigil? A simple canvasing of the area would have netted some valuable evidence that could have thwarted the rolling gun battle. Apparently the free t-shirt and hot dog budget doesn’t cover those kind of things. Was the city’s NOVA Unit reaching out to known affiliates of rival factions, er, gangs after the shooting? We’ve tried reaching out to NOVA officials on multiple occasions through a variety of communication mediums. Our calls and emails have gone unanswered, just like the questions our community has after this spate of killings.
Sadly, nobody with any power to change the outcomes cared to pay any attention when the signs were there.
