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AWARDS DATABASE
All of the winners, all of the nominees, all of the awards shows.
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Crime drops in Compton: Children embrace at a Compton church event in January. Faith Inspirational Missionary Baptist Church offers free movies in local parks, and draws large crowds as people feel safer going out.
(Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)
Share your thoughts on this story and this area.
Do you live in Compton? Do you think that Compton is a bad place to live or dangerous? If so, what are you doing to make Compton a better place? If you, want to see a change in Compton, you need to get involve in making a change in the city. Also, take pride of Compton. Vote, get involve,report any suspicious activity. Love Compton. What is the point to pay a lot of property taxes, if they you don't care if the money is use to make Compton a better place or they are not being use for responsible things. So get involve.
Submitted by: ChangefromCpt
ive lived in compton for 40 yrs its good to finally here some good things about my city. my black community. black people everywhere should take pride in the strides made by our race, in sharp contrast to the yrs preceeding. though our city is diverse and filled with all races its been charecterized as a bad place to live, primarily due to the black occupants
Submitted by: overjoyed
Homicides plunge, hope rises in ComptonWith slayings in the community at their lowest level in 25 years, people are walking the streets again. Once resembling a military operation, law enforcement is engaging more with residents.
It is a Sunday morning and there is still dew on the grass outside Faith Inspirational Missionary Baptist Church. Already, God has received a standing ovation. The thermometer on the wall claims it's only 75 degrees in here, but congregants are dancing in the aisles, some with their shoes kicked off and stashed under the pews. Their sweat mixes with their tears, and for once in Compton, they are tears of joy.
"People of faith!" thunders the Rev. Rafer Owens, a native son who is also a veteran Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy. "Are you ready to praise the Lord?" Six hundred people respond: "Ha-roo!" "Are you ready to take back Compton?" Louder this time: "Ha-ROO!" "We disrespected the city of Compton," Owens says, more quietly now. "And when you don't want something, you give it to the rats and the roaches." They've been praying for a long time in Compton, praying hard. For a long time, it seemed no one was listening. "Father God, some people in here are hurting," the pastor says, head bowed. "They have given what they feel is their last mile." But change, he insists, is afoot. Takin' a life or two That's what the hell I do By the time the hip-hop group N.W.A released its seminal 1988 album "Straight Outta Compton," with those lyrics, the city's fate seemed sealed. The album was a celebration of the gang life; killing was described as an inescapable part of life. The town that many still refer to as "Old Compton" -- poor but proud, with an abiding sense of community -- had been ravaged by guns, crack and joblessness. With just 100,000 people, Compton developed an outsize but deserved reputation as a national epicenter of gang violence. Today, there are 65 gangs jammed into 10 square miles -- Front Hood Crips and Pirus and Seminoles, bored and broke, jaded and angry, sure that life has little to offer. The turf for some is no bigger than a football field, and they will defend it against any perceived slight. That's how it's been here for almost three decades. So it came as something of a surprise when the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which contracts to provide police services here, added up the community's 2008 homicides. The total for Compton, including smaller, adjacent pockets of unincorporated county land: 38. |
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