> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Residents organize in face of violence - URL: https://www.smdp.com/residents-organize-in-face-of-violence/ - Published: 2003-05-24T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T02:09:57.000Z - Author: Carolyn Sackariason - Tags: Community, Pico, #archive-import *Activist draws corelation between violence, poverty* An emergency meeting was called this week by residents concerned about gang violence in their neighborhood. Oscar de la Torre, director of the Pico Youth and Family Center, led the meeting at Virginia Avenue Park, which was held on Wednesday. Concerned about gang-related shootings three days in a row last week and another incident two weeks ago in which a stray bullet went through two walls and hit a dresser in a bedroom of Maritza Casillas’ home. Casillas lives on 17th Street with her four children. Casillas brought pictures that showed how the bullet traveled through her home. Wednesday’s meeting was organized by de la Torre, a local group called Mothers for Justice, Virginia Avenue Park personnel and the NAACP. The meeting was called by parents and families who are concerned about the recent violence that has broken out in the neighborhood, which is the poorest in Santa Monica. “It was something last minute,” said de la Torre, who is also a member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board. “We felt we needed to respond.” More than 50 people showed up to the meeting, including Santa Monica City Councilman Kevin McKeown, schools Superintendent John Deasy and school board member Julia Brownley. Santa Monica Police officers were present at the meeting, though they were not officially invited, said SMPD Lt. Frank Fabrega. “We were told about the meeting and we felt it was important to be there,” he said. “We weren’t asked to be there or participate.” The group plans to create a task force or a youth support network to help deal with the neighborhood’s violence problem. The group also discussed how to respond to youth violence and offered suggestions on how to improve the situation. “We have no youth violence response program that involves everyone including service providers, police and schools,” de la Torre said. “We are very good at responding to crisis but sustaining a positive outcome around this issue is very difficult.” He added that there was a series of fights between youth at local schools before the recent shootings occurred that wasn’t necessarily gang-related. “It was connected to more than just the shootings,” de la Torre said. “There is racial tension.” De la Torre said the community has held meetings and organized at least three times in the past seven years when violence has broken out in the neighborhood. And while it helps initially, violence always seems to reappear. “Violence comes in cycles, it’s not consistent,” he said. “I would argue there is a connection between poverty and violence... poverty is violence.” The larger issue is getting to the root of the problem and understanding why youth are risking their lives with violence, de la Torre said. Residents said they are frustrated because they don’t feel safe in their own community. They want more police presence but don’t want youth of color harassed by police, de la Torre said. “The issue is visibility because the community doesn’t feel safe if police aren’t visible,” he said. “They want a high level of professionalism from the police. They want more police presence and they don’t see it. “People are upset that it happened three days in row.” Fabrega said 97 percent of the shootings that have occurred in the neighborhood in recent years have involved blacks or Hispanics. He added that no one particular ethnicity is targeted by police. “Officers do not stop individuals for no reason,” he said. “They have to have reasonable cause.” McKeown told people at the meeting he would discuss beefing up police presence in the neighborhood with his colleagues in City Hall. But Fabrega said there are police patrols in the neighborhood every day, 24 hours a day. And during the past three years, SMPD has added patrols there, including a helicopter that monitors the area from the sky. Patrols include officers assigned to the beat regularly, as well as plain clothes officers traveling in unmarked cars and non-police cars. Many resident agree with comments made earlier this week by Peter Tigler, vice chair of the Pico Neighborhood Association, that on-going violence wouldn’t be tolerated in other Santa Monica neighborhoods. “It’s a hard reality to grapple with,” de la Torre said. “There is a tale of two cities. It’s social economic classes and race.” De la Torre also raised the issue that the state government spends more money on prisons than it does on schools. “What are we teaching our kids? We are sending 13-year-olds to jail... we are producing gang bangers,” de la Torre said. “And there is serious racial animosity in the prisons right now and it’s spilling over onto the streets.” > “What are we teaching our kids? We are sending 13-year-olds to jail... we are producing gang bangers. And there is serious racial animosity in the prisons right now and it’s spilling over onto the streets.” — – OSCAR DE LA TORRE School board member and activist The challenge for parents who are poor is that they have to work more than the average person just to make a living and aren’t as available to their children as they should be, officials say. “They have their hands full... they are working parents and trying to keep up with the cost of living in Santa Monica,” de la Torre said, adding a recent RAND survey shows the largest population of single-parent families on the westside of Los Angeles is in the Pico neighborhood. Another meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 29 at Virginia Avenue Park and a peace march — part of the newly-formed “Pico Peace Movement” — is planned for June 8. *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 24, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/052403.pdf?ref=smdp.com)