By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

First of two parts

December 19 -- In every corner of the cramped two bedroom Pico Neighborhood apartment where Eddie Lopez grew up with his family before he was fatally shot last February, the memory of the fresh-faced 15-year old lives on.

From medals and sports trophies, to pictures and paintings, images of the sophomore adorn nearly every wall. Stuffed animals that he had nearly outgrown lay on his neatly made-up bed. Even his school bag with completed homework assignments sits in the family room, as if he were headed off to school.

Eddie Lopez's mother, Arminda; grandmother and brother, Danny, hold portrait of Eddie. (Photos by Olin Ericksen)

While sometimes painful reminders to his mother, ailing grandmother and brother who still live there -- trying to cope with their first holidays without the jovial teen -- his family members cannot bring themselves to store away many of the remaining relics of Eddie's life.

"I keep them because they remind me of him," said Eddie's 50-year-old mother, Arminda Lopez, gently touching the homework where her lost sons' distinctive hand-writing covers the pages.

By all accounts, Eddie Lopez, a talented high school football and baseball athlete, was not the kind of kid that should be a victim of the gang violence that has simmered in Santa Monica for decades.

Eddie, police and family members said, was never a member or even affiliated with gangs.

Arminda Lopez keeps Eddie's school papers.

A decent student who was friendly with other kids at Santa Monica High School, Eddie -- who would have turned age 16 last June -- even had a girlfriend.

And he was close to his family, keeping watch over his ailing grandmother, who recently suffered a stroke.

"She used to ring a bell, and Eddie would come running over from Edison Elementary where he'd be playing," said half-brother Danny, now 26-years-old.

"Some of the neighbors used to play jokes on him and ring the bell," said Danny laughing. "But Eddie wouldn't get mad, because he was always doing stuff like that."

Eddie's bedroom has many of his belongings.

Now, Danny has picked up more of the responsibility of looking after his grandmother and mother who still struggle with the grief on a daily basis.

"When I wake up, I think it's time to get him ready for school and go looking for him," said Arminda.

Only each time, predictably, she finds his bed empty. "It's very painful because he was my life."

Now as the days have turned to months and the Lopez family struggles to find some peace, police seem to be hunkering down for an investigation that could possibly take years to resolve. Eddie Lopez’s death is the latest in a series of killings that has haunted the city’s poorest and most diverse neighborhood.

"Over the course of the years we've had many murder cases that have drawn attention from the community," said Detective Ray Cooper, who heads all investigations for the Police Department.

And while Cooper believes the Lopez murder has garnered no more attention that other gang-related murders, some in the community, including the Lopez family, hope Eddie's death may serve as a bellwether for change.

Several top City posts have changed hands in the last year, including a new incoming City manager, Lamont Ewell from San Diego, who expressed his condolences and outrage in an open letter to the City after the Lopez murder.

Arminda Lopez with mementoes of her son.

And just last week, Santa Monica’s new police chief, Tim Jackman from Long Beach, met with the Lopez family only days after he assumed the new post.

Ever since a shooting at Edison Elementary next door to the Lopez apartment sparked two gang conferences headed by State Senator Sheila Kuehl, the City, schools, non-profits, law enforcement and other so-called "action partners," have been crafting a plan to stamp out youth violence.

Better economic opportunities for the many single parents and children who grow up in low-income households, more parenting classes, better coordination and understanding between police and the residents they protect, are all strategies being worked on.

While Arminda admittedly does not know much about the policies being worked on, her advice to parents echoes some of the strategies the City and police have put forward in the last two years.

"Parents have to know where their kids are," Arminda said.

And gang violence, she added, must be seen as a regional, and not only a local, problem.

"It's not only Santa Monica, because people are coming from outside. We're supposed to be getting together, not Santa Monica and Sawtelle," said Arminda referring to two gangs that are often fighting in the area.

"We are the same, we can go to over there, they can come over here, they go to the same school, and they have to go together," she said.

While police estimate there are fewer than 100 gang members and affiliates living in the beachside city, gangs are a fact of life that Eddie and others his age have had to cope with growing up in the Pico neighborhood.

"It's ridiculous, you can't wear the clothes you want in your own area," said Danny, noting that when he grew up in the 1990s the violence was worse. "I feel like it's a big city inside of a small town."

Yet stopping the cycle of violence may be more difficult than many think.

Danny Lopez with family pictures.

Soon after Eddie was killed, Danny had to plead to discourage kids in his neighborhood from retaliating against the perceived suspects.

“I told my brother’s friends, who were upset and thinking about going and causing trouble and said, ‘You know what, you can't bring anybody back by sacrificing another person,’" Danny said.

That is exactly the blood for blood cycle of revenge that must stop, if there will ever be lasting peace between youth-based gangs, police and community activists agree.

Arminda -- who is Catholic -- said she has forgiven her son’s killers, who still remain at large.

"I forgave them, but I am still angry," said Arminda, noting that if given the chance, she would want the killers to know what kind of person Eddie was and what they have taken away.

In an effort to carry on, she takes comforts in routines and effigies.

Each week since Eddie was murdered outside a Pico Boulevard mini mart, she visits his grave in Culver City to replace the flowers. She has also become more used to speaking about her son, though it still brings her to tears when she does.

"I still see him standing right outside, coming in from school laughing and smiling," she said.

Arminda Lopez also struggles each day with irrational feelings that come from losing a son.

"Sometimes I'm angry with him and sometimes I say I'm sorry," Arminda said. "I ask him why he had to leave the house that day, and I say to him (I’m) sorry for working so late that I don't have time to take him to his games or go to the games."

Now the first Christmas without Eddie is fast approaching, and his family – who spent Thanksgiving with relatives because the memories were too much to bear – are not sure what they are going to do.

"It may be too painful to stay here," Arminda said.

Next: Police search for killer