Foes share a tragic bond

Washington Preparatory and Los Angeles High schools played a football game Friday, each a man short.

Washington was missing Eric Sims, who was fatally shot in August a block from campus. Los Angeles played without star running back Jamiel Shaw II, gunned down in March three doors from his Arlington Heights home.

The game, won by Washington 24-0, was played at L.A. High amid heightened security concerns in the wake of an even more recent shooting. Two weeks ago after a Washington Prep game, a former player and a 12-year-old girl were injured in a shooting.

There were visible reminders of loss: L.A. High players wore a black peace patch with Shaw’s uniform number; Washington helmets bore decals displaying the initials and numbers of both players.

Then there were the things the few hundred fans who attended didn’t see, like tears hours before the first snap. Washington Coach Michael Grimble was startled earlier in the day when he spotted his normally unflappable senior safety, Kingdwayne Solomon, crying in a school parking lot.

“Coach, this is Eric’s day,” Solomon said. “I miss him.”

Je’Don Lasley, a junior receiver for L.A. High, similarly choked up as he delivered a pregame prayer in the Romans’ locker room. Shaw used to lead those prayers.

“When I pray, I’m like, if I could say half the stuff he said,” Lasley said. “I say whatever comes and hope we’re all right.”

And then there was L.A. High junior linebacker Rayvione Mouton, who has a tattoo tribute to his brother, Raymond, on a forearm and wears a T-shirt under his jersey that bears his sibling’s photo.

Raymond, 20, a former Romans quarterback, was killed in June after being shot three times during a drive-by at his grandmother’s home in South L.A.

“My brother was like a father, a brother, a best friend -- he was everything to me in one,” Mouton said. “To have two people so close to me murdered three months apart, it tears up my heart.”

The violence has touched so many L.A. High students that football Coach Hardy Williams said stories of shootings now barely cause a stir. “It’s like, ‘What else is new?’ ” Williams said.

The L.A. High campus is in a relatively upscale area on Olympic Boulevard near the multimillion-dollar homes of Hancock Park. But the school’s attendance boundaries encompass rough neighborhoods.

Washington Prep is in an unincorporated area between South Los Angeles and Inglewood that in recent months has been ravaged by bloodshed. Eleven shootings in the school’s Athens neighborhood have resulted in eight fatalities since June.

“I look at our kids, unfortunately, as an endangered species because this gang activity is so high,” said Eddie Jones, president of the Los Angeles Civil Rights Assn. “Gangs are everywhere. . . . It’s like a cancer.”

Coach Williams said athletes used to be largely excluded from gang violence. Yet his team almost lost a second player, Orlando Isles, who was recently struck in the right calf during a drive-by shooting. The friend standing next to him, Chris Taylor, died after being shot twice in the head.

“At one time athletes were looked at as pretty prominent, even on the high school level,” Williams said. “Gang members now, maybe it’s like a notch in their belt or something.”

Players said they rarely feel safe in their neighborhoods -- before or after games.

“I don’t feel comfortable going outside late anymore,” said Isles, who no longer has sensation in his right ankle as a result of his gunshot wound. “I’m looking at every car drive by me.”

Boyle, the player who was close to Sims, said he yearns to escape the violence.

“It just gives me motivation to try harder and go to college,” Boyle said, “so I can get away from all this.”

Sims had recently joined Washington’s team after moving to the area from Apple Valley. He was killed while riding his bike home.

Edward Boyle, a teammate who had lent Sims his iPod that day, heard the gunshots from down the street.

“We used to walk home from practice together,” Boyle said softly. “He was a cool dude.”

Shaw was most valuable player in the Southern League for L.A. High last season and was also a top student -- he was being recruited by Stanford and Rutgers.

A 19-year-old gang member has been charged with his murder.

Shaw’s girlfriend, who testified that she was talking to him by cellphone at the time, said she heard a voice ask, “Where are you from?” There was no answer, and then the line went dead.

Violence erupted again at Washington on Sept. 19, when a 12-year-old girl and 19-year-old former Generals football player were shot in a campus parking lot after a game. Though both are recovering, the former player, Richard Nichols, has been advised not to attend future games for his own safety, Coach Grimble said.

And the girl, Audubon Middle School student Mercedes Hearn, returned to campus Friday for a visit.

Jones, the civil rights advocate, has called for increased security at Los Angeles Unified School District games, and Grimble said he anticipated officers being stationed “all the way around the perimeter of the school” for Washington’s home game next Friday against Van Nuys High.

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ben.bolch@latimes.com

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