It’s been three months since Dear Leo was published, and the name still rings across the city. It also still maintains a candlelight vigil at Virgil and Burns, where everyone from the local homies to the local hipsters, police officers, and others in the neighborhood has mutually respected the humble memorial set up by Leo’s friends and family.
Whether in South Central or East L.A., or even just around the corner in Echo Park, gang violence is still tearing across the streets of the city. At the same time, the stories which don’t make it to the news desks –of individuals within the community organizing, building, and breaking bread with each other– continue changing the cycle for a new generation of young people. I’ve seen it steadily since Leo’s passing, and as a result am more hopeful today than ever about contributing to the peace in Los Angeles.
If even through so many heated days and windy nights, Leo’s candlelights could still maintain their ‘peace’, then so can I. So can all of the neighborhood; from South Central to East Los, and from Echo Park to Pasadena, and everywhere in between and beyond, The L.A. Storyteller believes in the strength of each block and the people who honor them.
With More Soon,