Teen arrested in killing of LA anti-gang counselor

[February 10, 2010]  LOS ANGELES (AP) -- When Ronald "Loony" Barron urged a young graffiti tagger to put away his paint cans, he was doing what he viewed as his mission -- steering kids away from crime -- but he paid for it with his life.

Los Angeles police arrested a 16-year-old boy on Tuesday, saying he would be charged with murder for shooting Barron to death Sunday night after Barron confronted him.

A 40-year-old former member of the notorious Crips gang, Barron in more recent years had become a respected anti-gang counselor who had preached against violence in schools and jails.

"He was all about helping children like the little kid who shot him," Barron's younger brother Anthony Blanks said. "He was out there helping children from making the same mistakes he made."

Police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said detectives started working on the case shortly after Barron died of multiple gunshot wounds at a hospital. They soon found a surveillance videotape from a business near the scene of the shooting that showed a tagger at work.

Smith said they then turned to the Los Angeles Unified School District's police department, adding that "they know taggers better than anyone."

Two officers immediately identified the suspect, who was picked up by detectives at his parent's house. He quickly gave up himself and the gun, Smith said. The arrest was made within 36 hours.

Stunned by the senselessness of the crime, detectives were determined to track down the alleged killer, he said.

"It breaks all of our hearts where something like this happens in our community," Smith said. "It's a tragic incident."

Police and city officials were quick to note that the shooting was a random, isolated incident to avoid rumors that may result in retaliatory violence. The Mayor's Office on Gang Reduction and Youth Development hastily called a meeting of gang intervention workers late Monday so they could get the word out that the killing was not gang-related or racially motivated.

An emotional vigil was held Monday night at the scene of the shooting outside a bar where Barron had been watching the Super Bowl with his girlfriend.

Those who knew him said Barron's charisma and the sincerity of his stance against violence, as well as his street cred as a former member of the Mansfield Crips and a former inmate of Pelican Bay State Prison, made him an especially effective gang intervention worker.

"He had a tremendous personality," said Jim Brown, the former NFL player who founded Amer-I-Can, the anti-gang program that Barron carried out in schools and jails. "The kids loved him. He made a difference in saving young people's lives."

Alex Alonso, founder of streetgangs.com who knew Barron since they were teenagers in west Los Angeles, said he was suprised that Barron would be killed in an incident of street violence after surviving life as a hardened Mansfield Crip in the 1980s.

But Alonso noted that intervention work is always dangerous. "Whenever you're confronting young people, you're taking a risk -- they're quick to use weapons," he said.

Barron is survived by two children, a 22-year-old son about to graduate college, and a daughter, 10.

Tommy "T-Top" Rivers, a fellow gang interventionist at Amer-I-Can, said his colleague's killing underscored the need to continue his mission.

"We got to stop the senseless killing," Rivers said emphatically. "We got to change the mindset."

Barron's killing is the latest in which taggers have fatally shot passersby who confronted them about graffiti writing over the past three years.

[Associated Press; By CHRISTINA HOAG]

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