'This Was Not a Person from the Ghetto'

Alturas Street on San Bernardino's Westside, or "'A' block'" as it's known, was busy this afternoon -- from the conspicuous San Bernardino police patrol cars that passed often to the residents who advertised a car wash at the far end.

Marshawn Derrick Hampton

But the center of activity was a house on the corner where Marshawn Derrick Hampton was slain Sunday night. The 18-year-old Projects resident was struck multiple times in a drive-by shooting, and died at a local hospital 15 minutes later.

As you can see in the below photo, one of the bullets left its mark in a large tree outside the home.

On Tuesday, homicide detectives continued to search for cooperating witnesses -- including a probationer who was with Hampton but has not been interviewed.

As this was going on, I talked to some of the victim's family.

Up to this point, the only thing we've reported about Hampton has come from police: that he was a documented Projects gang member. That's been the extent of the official information.

Outside the home Hampton was killed.

Detectives believe Hampton was targeted, and they're not receiving much help finding the killer, as is the case with many Westside slayings.

But family aimed to tell a fuller story of a young man they say was not defined by his economically depressed neighborhood, which has been the site of numerous gang-related shootings.

"This was not a person from the ghetto," said Arinesha Griffin, Hampton's aunt and a relative of another teen slain in a Projects shooting last year. "This was a person who was a brother and a daddy to us."

Despite friends on MySpace calling him a "Project soldier," Hampton was set to attend classes at San Bernardino Valley College, family said, and had a passion for basketball. He loved being around children, they said.

Most of all, despite any gang affiliation stuck to him, Hampton was trying to carve out a life for himself, Griffin said.

Hampton had no adult criminal record in San Bernardino County since turning 18 last December, court records show.

"He had skills," she said. "He knew what he wanted to do in life. He was going to get out of the ghetto, go back to school"

Like in many of the homicides we've covered, Hampton will not have a chance to change the police department's opinion of him, or for that matter, the members of the public who have already read he was a gang member killed in a violent area.

"Every day," Griffin told me, "we're trying to make it out here."

Read more in Wednesday's newspaper. I hope to have more information on Hampton, including from one of his uncles who I talked to, himself a shooting victim from the same block.

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A memorial outside the home.