Members of a Harbor Gateway gang accused in the racially motivated slaying of 14-year-old Cheryl Green later killed a man who witnessed the attack, fearing he would testify against them, prosecutors charged Friday.
Five members of the 204th Street gang allegedly stabbed 21-year-old Christopher Ash 80 times and cut his throat before dumping his body in the middle of a Carson street Dec. 28, according to the L.A. County district attorney's office.
Lt. Roger Murphy of the Los Angeles Police Department's Harbor Gateway gang detail, said Ash lived in an apartment in the heart of 204th Street gang turf and associated with members of the gang. Ash, who was white, had been questioned about Cheryl's Dec. 15 killing, but he neither cooperated with detectives nor asked for witness protection, Murphy said.
An LAPD crackdown after Cheryl's slaying resulted in the arrests of several 204th Street gang leaders, and Murphy said that instilled an "atmosphere of paranoia" in the gang.
"Whoever they think is the weakest link, they tend to go after," he said. "It might have been done to send a message to others."
Several other witnesses to Cheryl's killing have moved out of the neighborhood, said Najee Ali, an African American activist who has worked to build a gang truce in Harbor Gateway.
"It was one of our biggest fears and concerns after Cheryl's murder that we knew that this day would unfortunately come," he said.
The charges mark another twist in a murder case that outraged the community and prompted a major LAPD campaign against street gangs, focusing particularly on those that target victims based on race.
Cheryl was standing with a group of friends on Harvard Boulevard, just south of 206th Street, during the day when two men approached them. Without saying a word, one suspect pulled a gun and opened fire, killing Cheryl and wounding three others, witnesses and police said.
Authorities declared Cheryl's slaying a hate crime, concluding that members of the predominantly Latino 204th Street gang killed her as part of their effort to intimidate black residents of the Harbor Gateway district.
The violence highlighted the racial tensions that have plagued the working-class neighborhood east of Torrance for a decade.
Cheryl's mother, Charlene Lovett, said Friday she was saddened that her daughter's killing might have spawned more violence.
"It's crazy. It's horrible," she said.
