Nickerson Gardens Housing Project

For years, the residents of the Nickerson Gardens housing project in Watts complained about the terrible condition of their streets. "On 115th Street, there was a pothole so big a child could stand in it and you couldn't see him," said Nora King, president of the Nickerson Gardens Resident Management Corp.

Damu Barnes, 32, bounced his 1-year-old daughter on his knee Saturday while keeping one eye on his son playing in the courtyard of Nickerson Gardens. Nearby, hundreds of hot dogs grilled on oversized barbecues, a gospel choir prepared to sing and about 200 of Barnes' neighbors gathered amid colorful balloons for the first Nickerson Gardens Community Family Block Party at the largest public housing project west of the Mississippi.

More than 400 heavily armed Los Angeles police officers and FBI agents broke down doors and rousted residents of the state's largest public housing project before dawn Wednesday, arresting 41 alleged gang members who authorities say dealt in violence and crack cocaine throughout South Los Angeles. The raid at Nickerson Gardens targeted leaders of the Bounty Hunters, a Bloods gang, and capped a yearlong investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI, authorities said.

A second suspect was arrested in an alleged attack on two police officers near the Nickerson Gardens public housing project, police said Tuesday. Donte McDaniel, 24, was arrested during a traffic stop. Police had identified him as an alleged accomplice of Elwood Scott, 28, who was arrested at the scene of the shootings. On Jan. 21, Officers Todd Behrens and Peter Bueno tried to stop a car carrying McDaniel, Scott and a third person for traffic violations.

The human spirit is a funny thing. The worst can happen, and if you arrange your mind just right, you can almost forget it ever occurred. For half a lifetime, Kimberly Meadows almost forgot--until this week, when it all rushed back: a summer afternoon, a shy girlfriend, a white lace blouse, a sickening loss of innocence. The gang rape that Meadows witnessed as a teenager was not the first in human history. It was just the one that she kept to herself for 14 years.

When Nora King moved to Nickerson Gardens 21 years ago, she was a single mother with four sons. Back then, she says, you could sleep outside and leave the doors unlocked. Nowadays, gangs, unemployment and violence rack this Watts community--the city's largest low-income housing complex, with 1,066 units and 5,000 residents.

After spending a peaceful night as a guest at the Nickerson Gardens public housing project in Watts, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry G. Cisneros delivered a campaign-style attack Monday on Republican legislation that would slash housing programs and defended his own proposed reforms. In a speech at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, Cisneros portrayed congressional Republicans as reverse Robin Hoods who take from the poor to help the rich.

Police are trying to determine if there is any connection among the killings of three men within four hours late Tuesday and early Wednesday in the Watts housing projects of Jordan Downs and Nickerson Gardens. The first man slain was 22-year-old DeAndra Turner, who was shot about 9 p.m. Tuesday in the 2100 block of East 99th Place, police said. About 10:45 p.m., 32-year-old Eddie Felton was shot a few blocks away in the 2100 block of East 102nd St.

Charles Winbush witnessed the birth of his third child on Friday, cuddling the newborn daughter in his arms and pondering names for several hours with his wife, Gunisha. They never got the chance to choose. Winbush, 32, along with friends, Henry Livingston, 31, and Anthony Moody, 29--all residents of the Nickerson Gardens housing complex in Watts--were gunned down in an alley behind an Inglewood apartment building that night in what police say may have been a gang-related shooting.