COMMUNITY CELEBRATES UNITY, PEACE AT PARK.

Byline: Rachel Uranga Staff Writer

PACOIMA - Scores of teenagers carried posters of civil rights leaders Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. in a Saturday parade around Hubert Humphrey Memorial Park, once notorious for drug dealing and interracial gang rivalry.

More than four years after community organizers created the ``Unity in the Community'' festival - in response to decades of tensions between area Latino and African-American youths - hundreds of local residents turned out for a neighborhood cleanup, parade, health fair and youth baseball clinic.

For nearly two decades, the half-block park - sandwiched between two freeways and an industrial corridor - was a hangout for drug dealers and gangs. Gunshots were a familiar sound and neighbors hardly used it for recreation. So notorious was the park, that one gang was named after it.

``Before the community did not trust this park,'' said Patricia Segoviano, a recreation coordinator for the city Department of Recreation and Parks. ``But this shows that when the community comes together, things change.''

Under a clear blue sky, neighborhood children danced folklorico, played hockey and break-danced in what organizers say was an unprecedented show of the unity they first envisioned.

But perhaps the biggest thrill for many was the unannounced visit of Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, accompanied by Councilman Alex Padilla, who toured the park and spoke to dozens of aspiring baseball players at the free skills clinic.

``It wasn't like this before,'' said Gabriel Pereyra, recalling the first festival, at which a cleaning crew wrapped up early because of tension in the neighborhood. ``The first time I came out I was afraid.''

The event began the year after a 15-year-old Latino gang member was killed by an African-American former gang member, who said he shot in self-defense.

Neighborhood activist Richard Gallegos said over the years he has seen dozens of parents repelled by gang graffiti on the buildings.

But over the past year, no gang-related crimes have been reported in the park, said Lt. Tom Zak, coordinator of the gang impact team in the Los Angeles Police Department's Foothill Division.

Zak attributes the lower crime rate at the park to community involvement, increased prosecution of gang-related crime and beefed-up police patrols.

Helping to improve the park's reputation, the Los Angeles County Probation Department also plans to open a service center there, providing literacy classes, recreation programs, job training and counseling.

``There are still issues we have to fight, but to see the diversity in this fair, the sharing of cultures, is a beautiful thing,'' said state Sen. and mayoral hopeful Richard Alarcon.

Rachel Uranga, [phone]

rachel.uranga(at)dailynews.com