Homicides plunge, hope rises in Compton

It is a Sunday morning and there is still dew on the grass outside Faith Inspirational Missionary Baptist Church. Already, God has received a standing ovation. The thermometer on the wall claims it's only 75 degrees in here, but congregants are dancing in the aisles, some with their shoes kicked off and stashed under the pews. Their sweat mixes with their tears, and for once in Compton, they are tears of joy.

"People of faith!" thunders the Rev. Rafer Owens, a native son who is also a veteran Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy. "Are you ready to praise the Lord?"

Six hundred people respond: "Ha-roo!"

"Are you ready to take back Compton?"

Louder this time: "Ha-ROO!"

"We disrespected the city of Compton," Owens says, more quietly now. "And when you don't want something, you give it to the rats and the roaches."

They've been praying for a long time in Compton, praying hard. For a long time, it seemed no one was listening.

"Father God, some people in here are hurting," the pastor says, head bowed. "They have given what they feel is their last mile."

But change, he insists, is afoot.

Takin' a life or two

That's what the hell I do

By the time the hip-hop group N.W.A released its seminal 1988 album "Straight Outta Compton," with those lyrics, the city's fate seemed sealed. The album was a celebration of the gang life; killing was described as an inescapable part of life.

The town that many still refer to as "Old Compton" -- poor but proud, with an abiding sense of community -- had been ravaged by guns, crack and joblessness. With just 100,000 people, Compton developed an outsize but deserved reputation as a national epicenter of gang violence.

Today, there are 65 gangs jammed into 10 square miles -- Front Hood Crips and Pirus and Seminoles, bored and broke, jaded and angry, sure that life has little to offer. The turf for some is no bigger than a football field, and they will defend it against any perceived slight. That's how it's been here for almost three decades.

So it came as something of a surprise when the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which contracts to provide police services here, added up the community's 2008 homicides. The total for Compton, including smaller, adjacent pockets of unincorporated county land: 38.