Leaves a boy dead | Essay

Indledning
Alexander Alvarado did not live to see his teens. A blast of gunfire Monday afternoon saw to that. Had he made it to Christmas week, Alexander would have turned 13.

Instead, the boy was shot to death outside of an elementary school in Wilmington, a port neighborhood filled with industry, working-class families and gang problems that ebb and flow like the tides.

His stepmother was injured, too. A fourth-grade girl also received a gunshot wound in the late-afternoon incident; she was hit by a stray bullet as she watched her brother play kickball on the playground of Wilmington Park Elementary during an after-school program called Beyond the Bell.

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Uddrag
During a news conference from his L.A office, Moore also said one of the guns “was a very powerful one by the nature of the casings we’ve recovered,” but he declined to specify the type of weapon.

Moore said Alexander’s stepmother was shot in the stomach, and that he believed the 12-year-old was shot in the head.

Moore said he could not share more information about how the family was positioned in the black Dodge Durango, the motives of the gunmen or if there was any sort of interaction or familiarity between the woman and the gunmen prior to the shooting.

“The amount of violence,” Moore said, “it boggles your mind, when you think about an afternoon outside of a school.” He said he expected more information on the case to be made available Wednesday.

Wilmington and the surrounding area have long been haunted by gang violence. In 2016, more than two dozen members and associates of the Wilmas street gang, who were named in a federal racketeering indictment, were arrested on suspicion of murder, attempted murder, narcotics trafficking, robbery and witness intimidation.

They were also charged in a series of armed attacks on law enforcement officers dating back to 2008.

Gang violence in the region, which is part of the LAPD’s Harbor Division, has declined markedly over the last three decades. However, as in other areas throughout the country, violent crime has increased in recent years.

There have been 21 homicides so far in 2021 in the division, compared with 17 last year, a jump of 23%, according to the LAPD. Violent crime is up 8.2%, while property crime has dropped by 4.4%.