Gray skies, red roses, shades of melancholy

Gray skies hover like a funeral shroud over West Bennett Street, darkening the narrow thoroughfare into appropriately muted tones of melancholy.

Only flowers and balloons placed before a small house in the 600 block glow with isolated iridescence in the damp air. They bear a special significance in Compton.

Among the deep red roses and multicolored gladioluses clustered around a power pole are photographs of a small boy, his bright smile a gift to eternity. Notes and hearts cut from colored poster paper say they love him and will miss him.

His name was Denzell Martin-Sanders. Just 3 years old, he died last week in a roar of gunfire in the front yard of his family’s home. His mother and three others were wounded.

No one knows who fired the bullets or why. No one knows who they were meant for. Whether it was a deliberate act of revenge or the rite of a horrible kind of gangland initiation is for police investigators to determine.

But Denzell, the boy everyone called Munchie, is no less dead, and a deep sadness engulfs his neighborhood.

Add Denzell’s name to a list of other children killed in and around Compton in the last few years by guns fired in almost random fashion: Teiana English, 2 months old; Kali Murphy, not yet 3; Kylah Morse, less than a year; Selwyn Leflore, 9.

In decades of violence that have marked Southern California’s history, we have become almost immune to the murders of adults. But still shocking and tragic are the killings of our young, children as fragile as the flowers that gleam in the gray sunlight over West Bennett Street.

Each child’s death leaves an ache in the hearts of those closest to the victim and a shadow of guilt over the city in which it occurred. Investigators double their efforts to catch the killers, city leaders express outrage and neighbors promise crusades, but time dulls the pain and stills the passions of conscience, and nothing really changes.

Crimes in Compton bother me most. The city has been trying hard to overcome a civic leadership that shamed its citizens and corrupted whatever honor remained before it was voted out last April. Five current or former city officials are facing criminal prosecution. The new mayor, Eric Perrodin, promises change, but it’s slow in coming.

I talked about this with a friend in Compton, Maxcy Filer, who acknowledged “we’ve got to do more” as he leaned back in a chair and sipped at a soft drink. He’s a big man of 72 with a voice that plays like a bass fiddle in the close confines of his small office. With his shoes off to ease the pain of corns on his feet, he had the appearance of someone totally at ease with life.

But I’ve known Filer for a long time, and I know how determined he can be. I wrote about him 15 years ago when he had tried 43 times to pass the state bar exam and failed each time but would never give up. He finally passed it at age 61 after 48 tries, ennobling himself and bringing new meaning to the challenge of personal goals.

“Munchie’s death will cause a reawakening,” Filer said, nodding slowly to affirm his opinion. “More young people are moving into Compton and taking part in fighting crime. There are more neighborhood clubs cropping up. They’re good people of all different races and ethnic groups. They’re solid citizens.”

A 50-year resident of Compton and a former councilman himself, Filer introduced anti-handgun legislation in the city in the mid-1980s as one way to stop crime. “It passed the first reading,” he said, “but then the NRA got to them, and it failed on the second reading 4-1. I was the only one who voted for it.”

The memory pains him, but he still believes that Compton has a chance to rise above its reputation as a town whose streets are ruled by gangs. It was once a law-abiding city, he says, and it can be again.

“The police won’t be able to stop crime. It’s going to take the people to do it. We admit we’ve got a problem, but it’s getting better. There are no crack houses anymore, and no one is selling drugs on the street corners.”

As I drove through Compton, I saw signs of what Filer calls “the new homeowners.” Not renters, but people with a special interest in where they live. I saw cultivated lawns and gardens. I saw fresh paint jobs. I saw immaculate neighborhoods.

The memory of its lost children will haunt the city a long time. The last smile of Denzell Martin-Sanders will weigh heavily on West Bennett Street. But unless someone as determined as Maxcy Filer memorializes the children by galvanizing the people, Compton will forget its traumas until flowers and balloons once more brighten a dark moment in the front yard of someone’s quiet home.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at [email protected].