In Shootout’s Wake, Community Unites

The site of one of the fiercest gun battles in city history was awash in fun and games Saturday as neighbors in North Hollywood gathered at a huge block party to meet each other and affirm their sense of community.

Hundreds came to the neighborhood behind the Bank of America branch that was held up Feb. 28 by two heavily armed gunmen who exchanged fire in a nationally televised shootout with police.

A dunking booth, a raffle, a bouncing castle for kids and a battleship replica for military buffs were among the reassuring symbols of normalcy on streets that not so long ago were marred by bullets and blood.

Several of the Los Angeles Police Department officers involved in the confrontation returned to the scene Saturday to bask in public praise--and reciprocate.

“Police are an extension of the public,” said LAPD Sgt. Dean Haynes, who was wounded in the shoulder and leg during the siege. “We can’t do our jobs without them.”

And if the shootout was an extraordinary event, so were Saturday’s festivities in a working-class area where residents have not had an organized Neighborhood Watch in more than a decade.

“I’ve been in this neighborhood 16 years, and I’ve never seen anything on this scale,” said Eric Harlow, 22. “This is an important development that will help put to rest the tension and the fear around here.”

Except for the faint pinpoints of bullet holes at several homes, there were few remnants of the shootout that killed robbers Larry Eugene Phillips Jr. and Emil Dechebal Matasareanu, wounded five civilians and 11 police officers, and shut down dozens of square blocks around Archwood Street.

“Why was it held here?” asked Gloria Martino, one of the primary organizers of the event. “Because this is the middle of the neighborhood, and everyone can feel like they are a part of this.”

Even before the bank robbery, residents said, they were beginning to see signs of positive change in the neighborhood, where the sound of gunshots and police helicopters were commonplace.

But after February, the process seemed to accelerate.

“People are looking out of their windows more, they’re paying attention to who is around, and they are looking out for each other,” resident Joni Lyman said.

“It looks like things are looking up,” another resident said to his neighbor.

The success of the event could be measured in the smiling faces of children as they sat on police motorcycles, climbed around in two camouflage Humvees and munched on hamburgers.

“What do you think?” Martino asked, before pausing. Then she answered her own question.

“I’m really glad I did it, and I’m going to do it again next year. This is great.”

Added Harlow: “These are all good people, and I don’t know why we have been so isolated. But that’s changing.”