Fate Leads Witnesses to Focal Point of Gang Strife

It was a Westwood shopping trip, a red sweat suit--and his mother’s admonition--that led the Inglewood High School student to the witness stand last week.

Yes, he told the court in a strong, clear voice, he had been in Westwood Village on Jan. 30, 1988, the night Karen Toshima was shot to death.

Yes, he could identify the man who had fired the fatal shot--it was the same Rollin’ 60s Crip who had hassled him about his sweat suit because it was red, the color of a rival gang.

From the stand, he pointed out the defendant, Durrell Dewitt Collins.

In many ways, his testimony was unremarkable, and Toshima’s death--as the unintended victim of a bullet fired in a fight between rival gangs--was just one among the hundreds of gang-related killings now being prosecuted in Los Angeles County.

But in other ways, the killing was far from routine, and the cast of witnesses last week told as much about the case as the testimony they gave.

There was the 16-year-old Inglewood student, who was shopping for basketball shoes when he saw the shooting, and later called police and volunteered himself as a witness--because his mother told him it was the right thing to do.

And the San Fernando Valley teen-ager who was strolling through Westwood with his buddies when he heard the gunshots and watched as Karen Toshima’s life drained out of her on the sidewalk near his feet, then went home and wrote a poem to help him deal with the pain he felt.

And the South-Central Los Angeles college student who “saw the bullet leave (Toshima’s) head” and chased the killer’s gang as they ran from the scene, then described the shooter to police.

And the boyfriend of the slain woman, who softly told the jury of hearing “two small popping noises” and seeing Toshima stumble to the sidewalk; of calling “Karen, Karen” and getting no response; of pulling her limp body toward him and discovering the pool of blood beneath where she lay.

Part of Public Agenda

Chance trips to Westwood on a Saturday 20 months ago led them all to the Santa Monica courtroom of Judge James Albracht last week, where they testified against the man accused of murder in the case that pushed the topic of gang violence to the top of the public agenda in Los Angeles.

Gang shootings happen in this county almost daily--and many of them claim innocent victims like Toshima. But most occur in neighborhoods where people are forced to live with the expectation of violence and are habituated by its frequency to protective responses, like run away or hit the ground.

The Westwood killing caught the crowds of weekend revelers off guard, unfolding in a kind of surreal fashion before people who had never before heard a gunshot or the familiar gang expression “What’s up, cuz,” and had no idea that wearing red or blue might be an invitation to fight.

“It sounded like a cap gun to me,” one young witness testified about the shot that took Toshima’s life. “I just kept walking. I had no reason to think anything was happening.”

The crowded streets have provided both prosecution and defense in the case with several eyewitnesses--an unusual situation for a gang case.

“In most (gang-related) cases, the people in the neighborhood who may have been witnesses are afraid to testify, and the gang members won’t testify because they don’t (want to) snitch,” said prosecutor Sandra Goen-Harris.

“This case is different because it was on neutral turf and witnessed by so many people with no gang allegiance.”

Called by Subpoenas

Most of the witnesses were originally questioned by police in Westwood the night of the shooting, then later brought to police stations and asked to select the shooter from pictures and a police lineup. All testified last week under subpoena.

There were no gang members lurking about the courthouse then to intimidate witnesses in the case, but talk of “snitches” and “payback” could be heard in the halls outside the courtroom.

“I didn’t want to get involved,” testified an uneasy prosecution witness, a young man with braces who was in Westwood that night and recognized some of the gang members involved in the fight that preceded the shooting.

Friends have warned him not to testify because “witnesses get killed,” he said. He hesitated when asked to point out Collins in court, but said he was “70% sure” Collins was the shooter.

Prosecutors have provided police escorts to and from court for many of their witnesses--who were nervous enough about testifying that they did not want their names printed in the newspaper.

“I’m not really scared,” said the Inglewood High student, who was 14 years old when he witnessed the killing, “but I’m an athlete at school and I have to go to a lot of different neighborhoods. People might know me. It would just be best if you don’t use my name.”

Not a Festive Scene

The picture of Westwood painted by witnesses is very different from the festive reputation Westwood Village enjoys. They described gang fights, threatened robberies, gun-toting thugs--a place where a visitor can’t wear a red sweat suit or a gold chain without fear of being killed over it.

Toshima’s killing capped a night of fights between gang members--male and female--that led to two rival factions of the Crips gang facing off across Broxton Avenue.

According to testimony, gang member Tyrone Swain was advancing on Collins’ gang with a plastic milk crate in his hand when someone--believed to be Collins--shouted “C’mon, I got something for you” and fired two shots, missing Swain, but hitting Toshima, who was window-shopping along Broxton Avenue with her boyfriend.

The case rests largely on eyewitness testimony. The gun used in the killing was recovered two days later in the ivy near UCLA campus housing, two blocks north of the crime scene, but no fingerprints were found on the weapon.

Collins was arrested a week after the shooting at his home in Southwest Los Angeles, after eyewitnesses picked his picture from among several of alleged gang members at the scene that night.

Defense attorney Paul Takakjian said the case hinges on two issues: “Who did the shooting, and what’s the degree of crime, if any, that was committed?”

He has not yet made his opening statement to the jury, but has cross-examined prosecution witnesses extensively on details of their descriptions of the killer, in an attempt to poke holes in their identifications.

He is expected to present other eyewitnesses who have failed to identify Collins as the shooter, or identified other people, and to try to show that whoever mistakenly shot Toshima may have fired to defend himself against the approaching rival gang.

The attorneys expect the case to last through mid-October, but prosecutor Harris has a special reason to hope for a speedy conclusion.

She is nine months pregnant with her first child, with a due date of Oct. 15.

“I fully hope to argue this case down to the last,” she said, although Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Duarte has been helping her question witnesses and is ready to take over the case if she cannot finish.

“I’ve been involved in this case for so long--from the first day of investigation--that I can’t imagine giving it up,” said Goen-Harris, a member of the district attorney’s Hard Core Gang unit.

She began presenting her case Monday--on what would have been Karen Toshima’s 29th birthday--in a courtroom crowded with television cameras and spectators, including family and friends of both the victim and defendant.

But since that day, the drama has been played out before the six-man, six-woman jury in a virtually empty courtroom, with an occasional court watcher, deputy sheriff or newspaper reporter dropping in. Only the defendant’s mother or father have been present every day.

An Emotional Ordeal

Toshima’s brother, Kevin, said he plans to follow the case through trial, although “It’s a little too hard emotionally” for his parents to attend the proceedings.

They are having a difficult time recovering from Karen’s death, but “they don’t feel any bitterness, any sense of wanting revenge,” he said.

“They’ve never said anything like ‘I want to see him found guilty.’ (If Collins is convicted) They’d like to see him rehabilitated and become a productive person with his own life.”

Kevin Toshima said his family is grateful for the witnesses who came forward to help police and prosecutors.

He rushed from the courtroom Monday as the first young witness left the stand, to thank the youth for being brave enough to testify.

“Hey,” the teen-ager said, as the two shook hands, “I just had to do what’s right.”