Imperial Courts Housing Project

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters on Tuesday led about 20 angry residents of the Imperial Courts housing project to the Los Angeles Police Commission, where they accused police of continually harassing and abusing tenants in the sprawling complex. "Please call off the dogs," the Los Angeles Democrat told commission members. "Keep them from abusing the people." Waters and the residents alleged that, since the Nov.

One person was shot dead near the Imperial Courts Housing project in Watts, police said Monday night. The shooting was reported shortly before 8 p.m., according to officers at the Los Angeles Police Department's Southeast Division Station. The victim was reported down near the housing project's recreation center near 114th Street and Gorman Avenue. INTERACTIVE: Times Homicide Report Homicide detectives were responding. No other details were immediately available.

Two men arrested in connection with the fatal police shooting of Henry Peco at a Watts housing project last year pleaded guilty Monday to separate charges of attempted murder and hiding the rifle that Peco allegedly fired at a group of officers. Marlon Kirkwood, 21, admitted in Los Angeles Municipal Court that he was with Peco at the Imperial Courts housing project in November and saw Peco shoot a rifle several times into a group of people.

Los Angeles police Tuesday released some details involving the fatal shooting last week of an armed man by an officer patrolling a housing project. Shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday, anti-gang Officer Manuel Castaneda and his partner were patrolling the grounds of the sprawling Imperial Courts public housing project in Watts in a marked police vehicle, according to an LAPD statement. The officers "encountered three known gang members" in a courtyard area near 114th and Grape streets, according to police sources and a formal statement released by the department.

Police dispersed a large gathering of residents and gang members in the Imperial Courts housing project in South Los Angeles after a Saturday morning party deteriorated into brawls, leaving one person wounded by gunfire. Five people were arrested. It was the third consecutive weekend that police moved in to break up unity parties among large numbers of rival Crips and Bloods gang factions.

Lorene Grant, a 59-year-old mother of seven and grandmother of "30-some," sat outside the front door of her small apartment in the Imperial Courts housing project in Watts recently and gave her assessment of the "neighbors" who moved in next door three months ago. "Well, they're getting a little more polite," Grant said. "Some of them are beginning to recognize that you're a senior citizen and that they can speak to you without wanting to go upside your head."

Cynthia Mendenhall, 32, is in her third term as president of the residents' advisory committee at the Imperial Courts housing project in South-Central. As she puts it, she "came back from a long ways" as a former gang member to become a civic leader, and that checkered past is one of the things that has driven her to turn her volunteer position into a full-time, non-paying job. "I don't want the girls to turn out like we did," she says.

Gang members shot to death a member of a rival gang Thursday, and at the same time inadvertently killed a member of their own gang, police said. Tommy Lynn Carter, 19, was standing in front of a liquor store at 103rd Street and Lou Dillon Avenue in Southeast Los Angeles at 12:30 a.m. when three members of a gang based in the nearby Imperial Courts housing project walked around the corner and began shooting, Detective James Harper said.

One person was shot dead near the Imperial Courts Housing project in Watts, police said Monday night. The shooting was reported shortly before 8 p.m., according to officers at the Los Angeles Police Department's Southeast Division Station. The victim was reported down near the housing project's recreation center near 114th Street and Gorman Avenue. INTERACTIVE: Times Homicide Report Homicide detectives were responding. No other details were immediately available.

The Rev. Carl Washington, a minister from Watts, made the 45-mile trip to Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church in San Dimas early Sunday, eager to meet the press. Washington, who emerged as a community leader after Los Angeles police officers shot 29-year-old Henry Peco at the Imperial Courts housing project last year, had called a morning news conference to kick off a 30-city tour--designed, he said, to share the lessons of how to deal with police misconduct, lessons learned since Peco's death.

Hip-hop was born poor. In the 1970s in New York, the kids who couldn't afford drum kits settled instead for two turntables and a microphone. Their vinyl invention would go on to become an enormous commercial and cultural force, and there is very little that seems ragtag about its diamond-studded superstars today.

Work crews started building a recreation center for the Imperial Courts housing project in Watts at the same time that construction began on the $360-million Staples Center downtown. That was in the summer of 1998. Since then, Staples Center has hosted more than a year of sports and concerts, as well as the Democratic National Convention.

Work crews started building a recreation center for the Imperial Courts housing project in Watts at the same time that construction began on the $360-million Staples Center downtown. That was in the summer of 1998. Since then, Staples Center has hosted more than a year of sports and concerts, as well as the Democratic National Convention.

A Los Angeles Housing Authority commissioner has resigned, firing off a sharply worded series of letters--including one to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development--alleging serious mismanagement, misuse of public funds and other problems in the agency that oversees the city's low-income public housing. Diane L.

Federal and local law enforcement officers early Wednesday arrested nine Southern California men and one woman who authorities said controlled drug trafficking and instilled fear in residents at two South-Central Los Angeles housing projects. The FBI, the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department made the arrests in predawn raids at seven Los Angeles residences, one in Carson, one in Riverside and one in Rancho Cucamonga.

Cynthia Mendenhall, 32, is in her third term as president of the residents' advisory committee at the Imperial Courts housing project in South-Central. As she puts it, she "came back from a long ways" as a former gang member to become a civic leader, and that checkered past is one of the things that has driven her to turn her volunteer position into a full-time, non-paying job. "I don't want the girls to turn out like we did," she says.

A Watts minister on Tuesday called for an investigation into the shooting death of a man in the Imperial Courts housing project after he allegedly fired at several Los Angeles police officers during a power blackout there last week. The Rev. Carl Washington of the New Commandment Baptist Church, located a short distance from the scene of the shooting on East 114th Street, maintained that Henry Peco, 28, was unarmed Friday night when he was fatally wounded by several police officers.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters on Tuesday joined those calling for an independent investigation of the fatal police shooting of a man during a power blackout at a Watts housing project. "The people there are angry, upset and frightened," the Los Angeles Democrat told members of the city Police Commission at their weekly meeting. "We're on the verge of a holocaust in Los Angeles," she said. "You need to see what you can do."

Life in the apartments, gang circles and cliques of Imperial Courts is one of hopelessness, poverty and nihilism to outsiders, and to some who live in the project. But there is more to this picture. Beyond the cliched images of gun-toting gangsters, unwed teen-age mothers and high school dropouts are the faces of people trying to get by. Some aspire to move beyond the run-down facades and grassless front yards.

Police dispersed a large gathering of residents and gang members in the Imperial Courts housing project in South Los Angeles after a Saturday morning party deteriorated into brawls, leaving one person wounded by gunfire. Five people were arrested. It was the third consecutive weekend that police moved in to break up unity parties among large numbers of rival Crips and Bloods gang factions.