Global Courant 2023-05-23 18:00:40
Juan López left Nicaragua for the US last year in hopes of escaping the violence plaguing that Central American country.
But his life ended tragically on the streets of Los Angeles, felled by a bullet as he worked to earn money so his daughter could celebrate her ninth birthday in his home country.
On the day he died, López, 39, was in a good mood because he had given him a “trabajito‘, a small job to paint an ice cream parlor together with a few other men.
Life in Los Angeles had not been easy. He struggled to find work as a painter and lived with his sister in a small apartment in Northridge, sleeping on a camp bed in her living room. He missed his three children – Brittany, 9; John, 12; and Edward, 13 – whom he had left behind in Matagalpa, Nicaragua.
His daughter Brittany’s ninth birthday was April 15—painting day—and he couldn’t wait to send money back to Nicaragua.
“He was so happy because he was going to earn that money to let his girl buy the cake,” says Ruth López Suarez, Juan López’s sister.
He woke up at 7am, shaved, showered, made his bed, left and she never saw him again.
Around noon, López was shot dead outside the ice cream parlor on Parthenia Street in Northridge while painting over gang graffiti, police said. The alleged gunman had seen López and other workers covering graffiti he and his crew tapped on the wall earlier that day and was so offended that he shot at the men, killing López, he confessed to police.
Los Angeles Police Department responds to reports of shots fired near a shopping center in Northridge on April 15. Juan López was shot dead outside the ice cream parlor on Parthenia Street near the mall when he painted over gang graffiti.
(KTLA)
López — who was in the United States for six months and in Los Angeles for only three months — had been caught in gangland disputed territory, unwittingly risking his life for meager pay and a day’s work, according to police and his sister.
Between January 1 and May 13, 98 people were murdered in Los Angeles, a sharp drop from last year, according to Los Angeles Police Department Statistics. In the same period last year, 135 people died, the statistics show.
It was not López’s first confrontation with violence. He was kidnapped and held for ransom in Mexico by a smuggler, though he eventually escaped.
He had come to America seeking safety, his sister said.
The family was involved in local politics in Nicaragua. They worked on elections and took part in marches and protests against the ironclad rule of President Daniel Ortega.
“If someone opposes the government in Nicaragua, they are in danger of being arrested or disappearing. He wanted to avoid that. That’s why he left,” his sister said. “Now that we’ve lost my brother, we’re seeing the truth we didn’t realize before. In my home country you don’t see those things where someone randomly comes and kills you. … You have to have a problem with someone for that to happen. … Here they kill you because they want to, or because they mistake you for someone, or just because you’re at work, and they kill you.”
After the shooting, it took Ruth López days to find out what had happened to him.
Ruth López holds a photo of her brother Juan López.
(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)
López didn’t return home the morning after he left to paint the ice cream shop, so his sister went looking for him. She went to the places he usually looked for work—like the Mormon church down the street.
Eventually she found a man who had worked with her brother in the past.
“I showed him a picture of my brother and he said, ‘Your brother is dead. … They killed him yesterday.’”
But police erroneously reported that it was a 60-year-old woman, giving her false hopes that her brother might still be alive.
Even after the man told López that her brother was dead, she still couldn’t find his body. He was not at the hospital and the police had no information for her. It wasn’t until the dead man’s fingerprints were matched against López in the Immigration and Customs database that she was sure he was gone. Her brother had applied for political asylum and was awaiting his first formal hearing.
Now López hopes to send her brother’s body back to Nicaragua for burial, which she cannot afford. It costs $12,800, she said, and she raises money on GoFundMe in order to cover the costs. She has raised just over $5,000 so far.
“My family wants to see him, his kids want to see him. It’s the least I can do for him right now,’ she said.
For Ruth López it is still hard to believe that she will never see her brother again. She left his bed in the living room of her apartment, made his bed – he made it every morning. It will be ready for him when he comes back.
‘I think I’ll see him again. I feel like it’s a lie. I’ll see him again,” she said.
