On April 21, The Wave’s webmaster forwarded me an unsigned e-mail from an exasperated reader that read as follows: “I was really shocked to open the paper on Thursday to see not one mention of Travion Johnson who was killed on April 11 in Carver Park in Willowbrook by Latino gang members. Sound familiar. Like Jameal [sic] Shaw, Cheryl Green, Travion was a happy-go-lucky kid with a lot of ambition and well loved. He followed all the rules: stay out of gangs, do good in school, treat people with respect. None of this paid off. As usual Latino gangs target innocent Black teens and the media who have all the power to help people speak out was nowhere in sight. You cannot continue to hide these hate crimes against Black people. One day it is going to erupt. Stop protecting these criminals and those who influence them.”

As a writer whose radar is fixed on the issue of racially motivated violence in the Southland by Latino gang members against African-Americans, I was stunned by this e-mail for two reasons: That I had not heard a word about this killing, and that The Wave, of all papers, would be accused of hiding the crime.
For the record: We did not know about it, so I checked it out and learned that the facts in this e-mail are true.

Seventeen-year-old Travion was a victim of a racially motivated homicide in Carver Park in Willowbrook, within the jurisdiction of the Sheriff’s Department on April 11.

According to Lt. Dan Rosenberg of the sheriff’s Homicide Bureau, Travion was the innocent victim of a gang fight that occurred earlier that day. Rosenberg said a Black gang, the Carver Park Crips, had a fight with some members of a Latino gang. They beat up the Latinos and ran them out of the park. Angry and humiliated by the beating, two Latino gangsters armed themselves and returned to the park looking to shoot — not the Black gang members who beat them up — but to shoot “the first Black person they saw,” Rosenberg said.

The first Black people the shooters saw were Travion and a teenage friend. According to the sheriff’s report, the two boys “were approached by two male Hispanic adult suspects. When suspects asked the juveniles about their gang affiliation, they said that they had none. At this time, one of the suspects produced a rifle and began firing at the juveniles, striking the victim multiple times in the upper torso. The second juvenile was able to run away and was uninjured.

“Deputies from the Century [Sheriff’s] Station responded and established a containment of the area,” the report continued. “During the subsequent search, the suspects were located in a nearby residence.”

The suspects, Angel Rivera, 18, and Miguel Chavez, 19, were arrested for Travion’s murder and booked at the Century Sheriff’s Station, where they were held without bail.

According to Rosenberg, Travion was not a gang member. “He was a great kid with an outstanding future who was minding his own business and living his dream,” Rosenberg said. “He liked riding skateboards and he had nothing to do with gangs.”

This story cries out for more information about the life of this “great kid” gunned down in a fit of racially motivated violence, but Rosenberg refuses to help me contact the young man’s family, while James Bolden, of Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’ office, has been doing everything he can to locate one of Travion’s relatives for me to interview. I appreciate James’ efforts.

As soon as I get more, I will paint a fuller picture of Travion’s young life so he can be remembered in the manner of our other murdered babies, Cheryl Green and Jamiel Shaw.