South Central Los Angeles

Police arrested a second suspect in a failed robbery of a South-Central convenience store that left two people dead, Newton Division homicide detectives said Wednesday. Octavio Juevas, 18, was arrested on two counts of murder. Juevas and Eduardo Lobeira, both armed with handguns, allegedly entered Roger Emiliano Luna's store on Nov. 12 and demanded money, police said. A gunfight erupted, leaving Luna and Lobeira dead.

A Brentwood physician who operated a clinic in South-Central Los Angeles was sentenced to five years in federal prison and ordered to pay $2.8 million restitution Monday for bilking federal and state health agencies. Keith O'Neill Perry, 46, who owned and operated KP Medical Center, was convicted last year of 39 felony counts, including mail, wire and bankruptcy fraud and making false statements to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Stephen Richardson has sought work from dozens of employers since he was laid off from his building maintenance job five months ago along with the rest of the company's staff. The South-Central Los Angeles native has courted companies from North Hollywood to Marina del Rey with no response, and temp agencies have told him they are so overrun with applications they won't even take his.

It took a conscientious casting director to remember South-Central. And a few Baptist ministers to pass the word. And a godmother who didn't mind waiting under the hot Saturday morning sun. Now it was up to 12-year-old Eric Gordon to show Disney that he "just can't wait to be king." Disney's "The Lion King" needed a couple of cubs for its ongoing Hollywood production, so casting people had come looking in the Crenshaw District.

No doubt Estella Jackson's Victorian house just south of downtown Los Angeles was once a handsome home. But 100 years can take its toll. With its exterior white paint peeling, poor insulation and a metal security door falling off its hinges, the house was not only tattered but probably unsafe for an elderly woman, as well.

Re "Retailers See Gold in Poor Areas," May 12: This article proves the readiness of inner-city shoppers. Now, bring the stores that will have the most impact on lives: Bring bookstores to the inner city. Bring the biggest and best bookstores. Bring Borders, Barnes & Noble, Brentano's, Bookstar and any others that truly believe in the power of their product. They will thrive in this vital, untapped market. And as inner-city neighborhoods become print-rich environments, remarkably, test scores will rise in "failing" inner-city schools.

Re "Retailers See Gold in Poor Areas," May 12: This article proves the readiness of inner-city shoppers. Now, bring the stores that will have the most impact on lives: Bring bookstores to the inner city. Bring the biggest and best bookstores. Bring Borders, Barnes & Noble, Brentano's, Bookstar and any others that truly believe in the power of their product. They will thrive in this vital, untapped market. And as inner-city neighborhoods become print-rich environments, remarkably, test scores will rise in "failing" inner-city schools.

Three blocks east of the 101 in the heart of South-Central Los Angeles, Fremont High School sits on a street of indifferent looking motels, burger stands and stray dogs. Across the corner from a self-service laundry where police say truants buy and sell drugs, the school is nearly hidden behind a $475,000 fence of curving iron spears and a metal screened wall that serves as the entrance. A friendly guard waves bewildered visitors over to a gate. After the first bell at 7:40 a.m.

Expanding on a quixotic but successful park revival campaign in recent days, Mayor Richard Riordan pledged Sunday to revive one Los Angeles park every two weeks from now until he leaves office in June. The mayor made his pledge at two South-Central churches in part to respond to an emerging theme in the race to succeed him: the charge that he and his administration have done too little to address long-standing problems confronting the city's poor and African American residents.