SUMMIT FOCUSES ON GANG VIOLENCE PARTICIPANTS SEEK TO TURN LIVES AROUND.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS

Staff Writer

PACOIMA -- After her son was shot in front of her apartment complex in 2003, Lela Jones started making a list of suffering.

Jones began collecting the names of young people lost to gang violence, and she put them in a book. On Saturday, more than 70 names were posted on a tall board at Hubert Humphrey Park in Pacoima, and Jones experienced what she called a personal victory -- bringing young people together to hear a message of hope.

Calvary Baptist Church of Pacoima, where Jones worships, organized the Youth & Young Adult Love Summit, which brought together former gang members and youths from the street.

The assailant who killed Jones' son Torrey, 23, was never caught.

"I just pray for him, whoever he is, I just pray for his salvation," said Jones, who lives in Chatsworth. "That's how I fight back."

Organizers said more than 300 people attended Saturday's event, at a park that has known violent incidents in the past.

The Rev. Curtis Anderson, 39, grew up in Pacoima and ran the streets as a gang member. Speaking before a crowd of worshippers, Anderson said he had once been shot at just around the corner from the park.

As the crowd cheered him on, Anderson asked his listeners to recruit gangsters for the church and turn their lives around.

"One thing about a gang member: He ain't afraid to die," Anderson said. "... That's who I want on my team."

Jones, a soft-spoken woman, said she collected the names of gang violence victims from people all over greater Los Angeles. She wants to take the names and the "Wall of Memory" from city to city.

At Saturday's event, teens played basketball while children climbed into a wooden Noah's Ark.

The Rev. Jon Saenz, 48, of Victory Outreach took time out to eat some snacks at a picnic table. The Panama hat-wearing reverend, who grew up in East Los Angeles, goes into the streets and the parks to meet with gang members and convince them to change their lives.

In recent years, he has noticed the San Fernando Valley's gang problem worsen. Gangs used to claim neighborhoods, he said, but now they claim just streets, making it more likely that young people will get in trouble for crossing into enemy turf.

Ex-gangster Gerald Gonzales, 40, of Northridge is a product of the Victory Outreach program, which converts criminals to Christianity.

But a life of crime led to many broken bones and a stream of about 60 funerals for friends who died of violence or drugs, he said. Gonzales said that over time, he has seen that gang members suffer from misplaced passions.

"We're a people that are ready to die for the neighborhood, we are people that are ready to die for a cause that is worthless," he said. "But at the time, it's not worthless."

The Rev. William Broadous is senior pastor at Calvary Baptist, and his family has deep roots in Pacoima. In fact, the school across from the park where Saturday's event was held is named after his father.

In decades spent combating gang violence in Pacoima, Broadous said he has found family is the best remedy for gangs.

"It takes the parents, it takes the religious community, it takes government, it takes all of us working together," he said.

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

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(1 -- 2) Above, Lela Jones, left, greets Erica Derby at the Youth & Young Adult Love Summit at Hubert Humphrey Park on Saturday in Pacoima. Jones lost her oldest son in an unsolved murder in 2003. Along with prayers there were games, music, food and a three-on-three basketball tournament, all in an effort to combat gang violence. At left, members of a youth group from Casa de Oracion pray at the summit.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer