Ramona Gardens Housing Project

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who shot and killed a teen-ager at the Ramona Gardens housing project last summer acted within department guidelines for the use of deadly force, an internal investigation has determined. Deputy Jason Mann, who fired the fatal shot, and his partner, Deputy Dana Ellison, had been cleared of any "criminal culpability" in earlier investigations by the sheriff's homicide bureau, the district attorney's office and the county grand jury.

School was out, and the municipal gym jumped with the wholesome noise of girls and boys slapping basketballs onto the hardwood. Then came the clatter of a helicopter overhead. "LAPD -- you see?" said Jose Saucedo, in a voice too weary for his 18 years. He stood at the gym door, eyeing the police chopper as if it were a storm cloud. "What's the reason for the helicopter? Why?"

With an average rent of $222 a month, staying at the Ramona Gardens housing project in East Los Angeles is relatively easy. Getting out is the hard part. As residents of the 497-unit complex mourned last weekend's death of 19-year-old Arturo Jimenez at the hands of sheriff's deputies, they were remembering not just a neighbor but a member of la familia-- one of the many people who have spent most of their lives in the oldest city-run housing project.

Residents of the Ramona Gardens housing project said Friday that deteriorating police-community relations--and a lack of official response to past complaints--contributed to a crowd throwing rocks and bottles at officers after police fatally shot a suspected gang member. A Los Angeles police officer is recovering after being shot during the gun battle Thursday evening near the densely populated Eastside housing project.

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday unanimously asked the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to launch an independent investigation of the Sheriff's Department and the shooting of a 19-year-old man at the Ramona Gardens housing project.

Students in Ricardo Aburto's class at Ramona Gardens housing project scoffed when he suggested they organize a children's soccer clinic. Who would listen to a bunch of high school dropouts, former gang members and teen-age parents? But that was a month ago and the teen-agers' skepticism has faded as plans progressed for the clinic, to be held today at the East Los Angeles development.

A Los Angeles police officer and a gang member were wounded Thursday night in a shootout in Boyle Heights, police said. The officer was shot in the leg and was in good condition at County-USC Medical Center. The suspect was shot in the torso, but his condition could not be determined. The identities of the victims were not released.

In your article regarding the shooting of Arturo Jimenez by an L.A. sheriff's deputy in the Ramona Gardens housing project ("Deputies' Credibility Took a Beating at Latino Project" front page, Dec. 20), the reporter asserts that Jimenez was unarmed at the time of the shooting. Jimenez was, in fact, armed with a deputy's flashlight, which can be considered a deadly weapon when used to strike someone in the head. Jimenez had already struck the deputy at least once in the head with the flashlight, which resulted in the deputy's hospitalization with severe head injuries.

The Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday gave Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) the power to subpoena Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department records of a controversial shooting at the Ramona Gardens housing project after Sheriff Sherman Block refused to produce them. "We have had an absolute concrete wall of obstacles to go through in getting access to information," said Torres, chairman of the newly appointed Senate judiciary subcommittee on peace officer conduct.

On Thursday, they buried Smokey. The homeboys and homegirls of Ramona Gardens filed past his metallic gray coffin, laid a rose or carnation on top and struggled to hold back tears that seemed antithetical to their street-tough demeanors. Oldies played on a portable tape deck. Someone held up a small Mexican flag. Then they lowered 19-year-old Arturo Jimenez, dressed in his favorite blue and gray Pendleton shirt, into the freshly dug ground.

A Los Angeles police officer and a gang member were wounded Thursday night in a shootout in Boyle Heights, police said. The officer was shot in the leg and was in good condition at County-USC Medical Center. The suspect was shot in the torso, but his condition could not be determined. The identities of the victims were not released.

Students in Ricardo Aburto's class at Ramona Gardens housing project scoffed when he suggested they organize a children's soccer clinic. Who would listen to a bunch of high school dropouts, former gang members and teen-age parents? But that was a month ago and the teen-agers' skepticism has faded as plans progressed for the clinic, to be held today at the East Los Angeles development.

Officials expect construction to begin next month on a new clinic at the Ramona Gardens housing project that will offer expanded medical and dental services to low-income residents. Months of delays have caused some residents to doubt whether the clinic would become reality.

A boarded-up apartment at the Ramona Gardens housing project will soon be converted to a permanent medical clinic, with doctors and a dentist to treat patients from the neighborhood. A city zoning administrator approved plans in December to convert the three-bedroom unit, No. 380, which has been empty for four months, said John Juarez, assistant director of Community Health Foundation of East Los Angeles, which will run the clinic.

Los Angeles County has tentatively settled a wrongful death lawsuit, agreeing to pay $450,000 to the family of a teen-ager who was fatally shot in 1991 by a sheriff's deputy at the Ramona Gardens housing project in East Los Angeles. The settlement brought an abrupt end to a 2 1/2-week-old trial against former sheriff's Deputy Jason Mann, now retired, and the county in the shooting of Arturo (Smokey) Jimenez, whose death touched off a disturbance at the housing project.

The Los Angeles Lakers paid a visit to Ramona Gardens last week to dedicate a refurbished outdoor basketball court funded by the NBA team and Foot Locker shoe stores. The asphalt court was repaired and painted and new hoops were installed, said Rhonda Windham, assistant director of public relations for the Lakers. She would not disclose the improvements' cost. "This was a facility that desperately needed refurbishing," she said. "There was a giant hole in the middle of the court.

Officials expect construction to begin next month on a new clinic at the Ramona Gardens housing project that will offer expanded medical and dental services to low-income residents. Months of delays have caused some residents to doubt whether the clinic would become reality.

Days before a contingent of city, school and private industry officials showed up at the opening of a new counseling and job-training center in the Ramona Gardens housing project on Tuesday, the desperate need for help was already being made dramatically clear. About 50 yards from the door to the recently renovated center in East Los Angeles, residents found the body of a man who had been brutally murdered in an apparent pay-back for a drug deal gone sour, police said.

Two teen-agers have been detained in connection with the Aug. 30 firebombing of two black families at the Ramona Gardens housing development, but there is insufficient evidence to charge them with that crime, authorities said Monday. Lt. Willie Thompson, acting chief of the Housing Authority Police, said his officers identified suspects within a week of the bombing, but it took two weeks to gather enough evidence for search warrants.

Despite the fact that there have been no arrests, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said Friday that it will look into the racially charged investigation of two recent firebombings of African-American families at the Ramona Gardens housing project in Boyle Heights. Meanwhile, City Councilman Richard Alatorre said he had met with about 50 youths from the project and learned that the bombings were committed by one or two teen-agers who were high on PCP.