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Gang siege terrorizes McFarland community
| Saturday, May 12 2007 9:40 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, May 12 2007 9:45 PM
MCFARLAND -- East of the freeway, in the few small blocks where gunfire has so far killed five this year, gang markings are everywhere: stop signs, fences, utility poles, sidewalks, tree trunks.
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Daylight shows through the hole left by a stray bullet that killed a McFarland woman early Friday. She was the fifth victim of gang violence in the small town this year.
The 13 on this stop sign is a symbol for a Southern California gang.
McFarland High students, from left, Christian Abundis, Alex Larios and Erik Medina stand next to Everardo Lopez, right, the nephew of a McFarland woman killed Friday. The teens, who stopped to have their truck washed at a fundraiser for the victims' family Saturday, said they noticed the surge in gang violence in the area.
Children buy ice cream from a cart-pushing vendor. Overhead, the number 13 looms on the back of a stop sign.
Here it's sprayed in black paint. Elsewhere, you see it in white or vivid blue, sometimes embedded in phrases indicating McFarland's unit of the Surenos, a wide-ranging Hispanic gang based in Southern California. Myfas 13, Varrio Myfas.
Some children here know 13 stands for the southern gang and 14 represents the northerners, or Nortenos.
McFarland, 25 miles north of Bakersfield on Highway 99, appears to be in the clutches of the southern gang, if its graffiti is any indication.
Car wash for Graciela
On Saturday, family and friends of the latest victim held a car wash to raise funds for her family. A stray bullet killed Graciela Garay, 26 years old and six months pregnant, as she slept next to two of her children at half past midnight Friday. It was her birthday.
A 26-year-old man had been shot in the legs outside Garay's house on Kern Avenue. Sheriff's officials believe the incident was gang-related.
McFarland resident David Robles, 50, pulled his brown pickup truck into the car wash Saturday afternoon. He's lived in this town of 9,618 -- according to the freeway sign -- since 1975.
The gang problem is bad now, he said, and especially worrisome because he has grandkids.
It's not the first time locals have been terrified of McFarland's streets when the sun goes down, Robles said.
Gangs took over in the '80s, he said.
Robles motioned toward a nearby corner, remembering a shooting in the previous era that left a young man lying dead in the street.
"They look so innocent when they're laying out there," he said.
A crackdown by law enforcement and three-strikes laws cleaned up things then, Robles said.
A similar crackdown is needed now, he said.
Rules for McFarland children
Christian Abundis, 15, arrived at the car wash in 18-year-old Alex Larios' red pickup, along with Erik Medina, 15. All attend McFarland High.
Abundis said his mother has long worried about McFarland's dangerous streets. She gives him strict curfews and tells him never to get in disagreements.
While his mother's rules may have sometimes seemed silly in the past, Abundis admitted, the rash of killings in the last few months now makes her caution seem wise.
A few blocks away, on a corner of San Lucas Street near the site of two shootings that killed three this year, a trio of children played in the fenced dirt yard of a beige house.
Vanessa and Osbaldo Nino, 6 and 8, translated for their mother, Luzelena Nino and their 3-year-old brother, Erik.
"She doesn't like to come out at night," Vanessa said of her mother, who makes the children come indoors after 6 p.m. because of the "robbers."
Shrine at the bullet hole
By Saturday afternoon, a shrine with balloons and candles had sprouted around the bullet hole in the wall of Garay's home. Some balloons bobbed with birthday wishes, others expressed love for a mother or we'll-miss-you messages.
Garay's nephew, Everardo Lopez, 10, and his friend Miguel Manzo, 12, pulled balloons back to show where the bullet went in. They pointed to another bullet hole through the metal box on a utility pole in front of the home.
Inside, the blood-soaked bed has been removed and you can see daylight through the bullet hole, they said.
Across the street, a stop sign is tagged with the number 13.