‘These accursed streets!’

“Again, again!” South Los Angeles resident Sandra Polanco, above, wailed in Spanish, breaking down at the sight of a homicide shrine for Wilbert Jackson, 16, the day after his April killing. “These accursed streets!” (Estas calles malditas!) She did not know the youth who died at the corner of West 51st and Figueroa streets. But Polanco had lost a son, Giovanni Mancia, 16, to a homicide nearby almost a year earlier. As she spoke, she gripped a cellphone with a shaking hand. The phone contained Giovanni’s picture. Seeing her reaction, her remaining son, Jesus, 6, put his arms around his mother.