Tomorrow will be the 2-week anniversary of the afternoon 29-year-old JoAnn Harris bizarrely was killed in the gymnasium of the National Guard Armory in Culver City. The alleged perpetrator was her boyfriend, National Guard veteran Scott Ansman, who is married and lives in Carson. Sgt. Ansman, who made the 9-1-1 call himself, is being held on $1 million bail. He is white, she was black.
The murder scene scant yards from the public park where Fiesta La Ballona was jubilantly exploding was fraught with peculiarities and the victims family is demanding answers.
[Homicides are starting to pile up for the Police Dept. Culver Citys second murder in less than a fortnight occurred last night in the westerly area of Washington Boulevard and Wade Avenue, recalled as the neighborhood where the Bosh brothers of Culver City were gunned down 4 years ago this month. Police told the newspaper that at 7:35 last evening, two middle-aged men were walking north on Wade, away from West End Park. A Wade Avenue resident accosted them in what may have been a robbery attempt. When he didnt get what he sought, police say, he fatally stabbed Mario Monso Fernandez, possibly in his 40s, believed by relatives to be a transient. Police were booking the murder suspect this afternoon. Days before the Harris killing, there was an attempted murder just 2 blocks south of the Police Station. Two suspects are in jail in connection with that shooting.]
The Harris-Bennett family, especially Mr. Bennett, believes there are racial overtones, not to the subsequent actions.
Their nearly uncappable mourning has been worsened by several negative assertions attached to Ms. Harris, starting with the police identifying her as an evident transient. She came from good stock, said her brother, a family that has been tightly welded by committed love and overt pride the entire span of his life.
Who to Fault
Mr. Bennett has no doubt where to aim an accusatory finger: Straight at the Culver City Police Dept., a charge his softer moving mother openly, and understandingly, decries.
Ms. Harris, according to the Culver City police, was knifed and slugged repeatedly with a baseball bat. The suspect claimed he reacted when she sprayed him with mace. The suspect, who remained at the scene inexplicably, industriously, not to mention oddly mopping up the flow on the floor where Ms. Harris was murdered, was carrying several knives when police eventually handcuffed him.
It is tragically ironic that Ms. Harris, a nurse, met her violent end in the Armory because that was where she was hoping to find a form of joy that would carry her life to a new plateau of fulfillment.
Why the Armory
Her family says she went to the Culver Boulevard building by Vets Park a year ago this month. She was interested in joining the National Guard because it seemed like the right time in her life.
Smart, unattached and near the end of her 20s, she had been doing the same thing for a few years . She seemed to be in quest of wider adventures than on-call nursing in Los Angeles was yielding to a young woman who had traveled a little but not enough to quench her desires.
First Reaction
Soon the humming of the fan in the Bennett home near Leimert Park would be drowned out by Mr. Bennetts powerful bass voice.
I am going to tell you right now, he began, this is very, very, very hard.
He emphasized each letter, every syllable.
That was my baby sister, Mr. Bennett said. She was a beautiful woman. She loved everybody. She cared about everybody. Its hard on me because I know she wouldnt harm nobody.
Unprecedented
Mr. Bennett finds it virtually impossible to accept that his sister would have kept anything harmful on her person. I have never ever known her to carry mace or any type of weapon, he said, because she loves people. For emphasis, he pronounced love slowly. She didnt hurt nobody.
What really bothers me is that they can label her as being homeless. They knew she wasnt homeless. They knew she was in a relationship. They knew she was expecting a child. But they want to print something crazy like this old homeless woman, Mr. Bennett said of a story last week in the Los Angeles Times.
Tone of the Report
If you look at the top of the story the Times printed, you will think this is a homeless person attacking a Guardsman so he had to defend himself. And you will leave it alone. But as you go along into more detail, you will say Wait a minute. This is about much, much more.
But that is to help Mr. Ansman out. Okay? I am not going to say anything to demoralize him or his character because his family is also going through a traumatic time as well.
A Few Questions
I will just say that something like this should never have happened.
There needs to be a full investigation into how the Culver City Police Dept. handles their 9-1-1 calls and responses.
How they allow evidence to be mopped up.
How they allow this man to take a shower and rinse himself off.
I mean, it is just unbelievable how they handled that crime scene.
(To be continued)
