SAN SALVADOR AND MEXICO CITY — The day before he was killed this week, Christian Poveda, veteran photojournalist and documentary filmmaker, said he was worried. The Salvadoran street gangs whose lives Poveda had chronicled in recent years were turning uglier than ever.
A brief glimmer of hope -- gang leaders speaking of a truce and ending the daily, deadly violence that has terrorized tiny El Salvador for years -- had vanished. A new crop of leaders was emerging who seemed more vicious and less inclined to negotiate or moderate their criminal actions, including extortion, carjacking and killing.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, September 06, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 64 words Type of Material: Correction
Filmmaker in El Salvador: An article in Saturday's Section A about Christian Poveda included a reference to an online video of an interview with the French-born photojournalist that said the video was made the day before he was killed, which was Wednesday. The Times did two interviews with Poveda, one in April and one last week. The video was made during the April interview.
"Government authorities have no idea of the monster facing them," said the French-born journalist, 54, whose recent documentary, "La Vida Loca," portrayed the desperate, brutal lives of gangs that have their roots in Los Angeles.
A day after Poveda made these comments to The Times, he was dead.
Police said Poveda was shot to death Wednesday, with four bullets in the face, as he drove home from another day of taking pictures and making contacts in a piece of territory controlled by the Mara 18 street gang but disputed by other gangs.
Police said they believed Poveda was killed by Mara 18 gangsters who were part of the new generation he had alluded to, young thugs who either did not know him or, if they did, resented his work.
Poveda's body was found alongside his car north of the capital, San Salvador, none of his expensive cameras or equipment missing.
Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, a former journalist who knew Poveda, said he was shocked by the slaying and has ordered a full investigation.
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Roots in L.A.
Street gangs in Los Angeles formed by Salvadorans have long been among its most ruthless. In the early 1990s, as El Salvador's lengthy civil war came to a conclusion, members of various gangs in Los Angeles returned here, either of their own volition or through the stepped-up deportation of those serving time for crimes committed in the United States. They replicated their U.S. organizations in the Central American country, recruited members, spread and now number in the tens of thousands.
In large part because of the burgeoning street gangs, El Salvador has one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
"Let's not confuse ourselves," photographer Edu Ponces wrote in the Salvadoran online newspaper El Faro. "Christian is just one of the 10 who will die today. On Sunday, he will be one of 70. And on Sept. 30, one of 300 for the month. . . .
