At City View Park in North Las Vegas, on a stretch of grass where Domingo Guizar was shot in the early morning of June 10, five candles surround a 2-foot high, blue wooden cross; at its tip hangs a picture of Jesus Christ on the cross and a deflated balloon. At the base of the makeshift memorial are four teddy bears (three are stuffed animals, the fourth looks like paper maché).
A few feet in front of the memorial, looking as if the morning wind might lift it skyward, is a black shirt monogrammed with images of dollars, "LA" written in huge, forearm-sized letters and, below that, the phrase "Get Money."
According to published reports, Guizar, a 19-year-old plumber who also worked in a loan office, was shot in a drive-by shooting. Authorities said Guizar, who died at University Medical Center, wasn't in a gang. His still-under-investigation death, however, adds to City View's growing reputation as a place to settle beefs.
On Cheyenne Avenue, between Commerce and Fifth Street, City View Park has allegedly become as popular as a gladiatorial site as the circular park (a park on a large roundabout) in Vegas Heights and the grassy neighborhood park on Lake Mead north of Losee Road, in Valley View Crips territory.
A law-enforcement source with knowledge of gang issues says City View Park offers quick access in and out, so thugs can do their thing and leave. It's also becoming a popular place to settle schoolyard and street beefs, the source says. For more than a decade, City View has been a prime spot for street dice games—and street dice-game robberies. Ishe Smith, a local boxer who appeared in the now-cancelled Contender reality show (and was profiled in these pages April 14-20, 2005, "Vegas' Contender") was robbed of $300 during a street dice game in 1997.
City View's violent reputation doesn't square with what North Las Vegas police spokesman Tim Bedwell knows of the park. "Maybe we're getting there after everything happens," he says. "Maybe it's becoming popular because we're shutting other places down."
Guizar's shooting marks the fifth recorded incident at City View this year, says Bedwell, joining two narcotics violations, one misdemeanor charge and a call to assist another police department (Metro).
But 2005 statistics from NLVPD seem to indicate that City View is having problems. Last year there were 21 incidents: aggravated assault with a knife, three misdemeanor battery charges, two misdemeanor lewdness charges, one incident each of felony lewdness and statutory sexual seduction, a possession of heroin charge, a misdemeanor narcotics possession charge, three possession of marijuana charges, a misdemeanor liquor law charge, one count of obstructing and resisting a police officer, a narcotics violation, an animal complaint, one vehicle impound, one misdemeanor traffic offense, a lost-and-found property case and one a call to assist another police jurisdiction. That's nearly two calls a month and that's only what police catch. Had Guizar's injuries been less serious and had he never went to the hospital, his shooting might have gone unreported.
"I've never been there on a call for a fight, but that doesn't mean they don't occur," Bedwell says. "It's certainly easier to get out of City View than other places. Of course, we're not going to shut down Cheyenne [to catch people]. We know there are a lot of fights in Valley View Park. But there haven't been as many because they know we can block off the streets leading to Valley View."
From the top of City View, you can see a large expanse of North Las Vegas. Republic Services to the west. The city's industrial section to the north. There's a lived-in feel here, unlike what you get at the pristine, master-planned parks sprouting all over the Valley. City View is built on a slope, the park rising with the elevation of Cheyenne Avenue.
At the bottom of the park is a rock-laden stream leading to small pond, where a group of men lounge in the shade of one of the many trees. At the top is a playground, where a young man in an orange jumpsuit, with NLVDC (North Las Vegas Detention Center) in black letters on the back, uses a pincer-like device to pick up cigarette butts, a North Las Vegas parks official keeping close eye. All's quiet, the type of morning where you hear the bird chirps.
Back at the cross, the slight morning wind tetherballs the sickly balloon back and forth. Broken glass creeps to the edge of the curb leading to Guizar's memorial. Somehow the scene is fitting: Gunshots in a park that's supposed to be safe have ended one man's life and left a family in mourning.