WASHINGTON (AP) — There's a new push to make testing for the AIDS virus as common as cholesterol checks.
Americans ages 15 to 64 should get an HIV test at least once — not just people considered at high risk for the virus, an independent panel that sets screening guidelines proposed Monday.
The draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are the latest recommendations that aim to make HIV screening simply a routine part of a check-up, something a doctor can order with as little fuss as a cholesterol test or a mammogram. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has pushed for widespread, routine HIV screening.
Yet not nearly enough people have heeded that call: Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, nearly 1 in 5 — almost 240,000 people — don't know it. Not only is their own health at risk without treatment, they could unwittingly be spreading the virus to others.
The updated guidelines will bring this long-simmering issue before doctors and their patients again — emphasizing that public health experts agree on how important it is to test even people who don't think they're at risk, because they could be.
"It allows you to say, 'This is a recommended test that we believe everybody should have. We're not singling you out in any way,'" said task force member Dr. Douglas Owens of Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.
And if finalized, the task force guidelines could extend the number of people eligible for an HIV screening without a copay in their doctor's office, as part of free preventive care under the Obama administration's health care law. Under the task force's previous guidelines, only people at increased risk for HIV — which includes gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users — were eligible for that no-copay screening.
There are a number of ways to get tested. If you're having blood drawn for other exams, the doctor can merely add HIV to the list, no extra pokes or swabs needed. Today's rapid tests can cost less than $20 and require just rubbing a swab over the gums, with results ready in as little as 20 minutes. Last summer, the government approved a do-it-yourself at-home version that's selling for about $40.
Free testing is available through various community programs around the country, including a CDC pilot program in drugstores in 24 cities and rural sites.
Monday's proposal also recommends:
—Testing people older and younger than 15-64 if they are at increased risk of HIV infection,
—People at very high risk for HIV infection should be tested at least annually.
—It's not clear how often to retest people at somewhat increased risk, but perhaps every three to five years.
—Women should be tested during each pregnancy, something the task force has long recommended.
The draft guidelines are open for public comment through Dec. 17.
Most of the 50,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. every year are among gay and bisexual men, followed by heterosexual black women.
"We are not doing as well in America with HIV testing as we would like," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, CDC's HIV prevention chief, said Monday.
The CDC recommends at least one routine test for everyone ages 13 to 64, starting two years younger than the task force recommended. That small difference aside, CDC data suggests fewer than half of adults under 65 have been tested.
"It can sometimes be awkward to ask your doctor for an HIV test," Mermin said — the reason that making it routine during any health care encounter could help.
But even though nearly three-fourths of gay and bisexual men with undiagnosed HIV had visited some sort of health provider in the previous year, 48 percent weren't tested for HIV, a recent CDC survey found. Emergency rooms are considered a good spot to catch the undiagnosed, after their illnesses and injuries have been treated, but Mermin said only about 2 percent of ER patients known to be at increased risk were tested while there.
Mermin calls that "a tragedy. It's a missed opportunity."
Men with Southland ties sought to join Al Qaeda and harm Americans, FBI says.
Four men with ties to Southern California have been charged with plotting to join Al Qaeda and the Taliban to commit "violent jihad" and target Americans, the FBI said Monday night.
One of the men, Sohiel Omar Kabir, 34, allegedly traveled in July to Afghanistan, where he arranged for terrorist training to be conducted with Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, according to a complaint unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Riverside.
Kabir, who lived in Pomona, is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Afghanistan, federal authorities said.
In 2010, Kabir allegedly introduced Ontario resident Ralph Deleon, 23, and Upland resident Miguel Alejandro Santana, 21, to "radical and violent Islamic doctrine," according to the complaint.
"Kabir influenced Santana and Deleon to convert to Islam," the complaint said.
Kabir and Santana allegedly posted terrorist audio and video files on their Facebook pages and communicated via Skype when Kabir was overseas, according to federal authorities.
The complaint said the men studied Internet essays and lectures by Anwar Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric and U.S. citizen killed in Yemen in 2011 by missiles fired from a U.S. Predator drone aircraft. The death of Awlaki, a mid-level Al Qaeda operative, was considered a major coup because he had been effective in reaching disaffected Muslims in the U.S. and elsewhere with his online speeches and sermons.
Santana is accused of posting audio files of Awlaki on a social media site, the complaint alleges.
After arriving in Afghanistan, Kabir told the two men he had arranged for them to travel to that country for terrorist training, the complaint alleged.
Santana and Deleon are accused of telling a confidential source working for the FBI that they planned to go to Afghanistan to take part in "violent jihad," the complaint said. Santana is a permanent resident born in Mexico, authorities said, and Deleon is a permanent resident born in the Philippines.
The confidential source was paid more than $250,000 in October by the federal government and received unspecified "immigration benefits," according to a footnote in the criminal complaint. The source was previously convicted of trafficking in pseudoephedrine.
In September, Santana and Deleon recruited Arifeen David Gojali, 21, of Riverside to travel overseas with them and join Kabir for terrorist training, according to federal authorities. Gojali is a U.S. citizen.
Santana, Gojali and Deleon were apprehended Friday by authorities with the Joint Terrorism Task Force. They appeared before a magistrate Monday in federal court in Riverside.
Kabir was taken into custody in Afghanistan.
The investigation is ongoing. If convicted, the men each face up to 15 years in federal prison.
GAZA CITY — After a night of sustained Israeli strikes by air and sea and a morning of rocket attacks on Israel, the Health Ministry here said on Monday the Palestinian death toll in six days of conflict had risen to 91 with 700 wounded, including 200 children as the assault ground on unrelentingly despite efforts toward a ceasefire.
The casualties — 19 people reported killed since midnight local time — included Palestinians killed in strikes by warplanes and a drone attack on two men on a motorcycle. Another drone attack killed the driver of a taxi hired by journalists and displaying ‘Press” signs, although it was not clear which journalists hired it, Palestinian officials said. On Sunday, Israeli forces attacked two buildings housing local broadcasters and production companies used by foreign outlets, but Israeli officials denied targeting journalists.
An Israeli bomb pummeled a home deep into the ground here on Sunday, killing 11 people, including nine in three generations of a single family, in the deadliest single strike in six days of cross-border conflict. Members of the fanily were buried Monday in a rite that turned into a gesture of defiance and a rally supporting Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers. A militant leader said Tel Aviv in the Israeli heartland would be hit “over and over” and warned Israelis that their leaders were misleading them and would “take them to hell.”
The airstrikes further indicated that Israel was striking a wide range of targets. Three Israelis have been killed and at least 79 wounded by continued rocket fire into southern Israel and as far north as Tel Aviv.
Israel says its onslaught is designed to stop Hamas launching the rockets but, after an apparent lull overnight, more missiles hurtled toward targets in Israel, some of them intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. Of five rockets fired on Monday at the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, four were intercepted but one smashed through the concrete roof at the entrance to an empty school. There were no reports of casualties. Other rockets rained on areas along the border with Gaza.
Later a second volley struck Ashkelon. Several rockets were intercepted but one crashed down onto a house causing damage but no casualties.
On Sunday, a new blitz of Palestinian rockets totaled nearly 100 by nightfall, including two that soared toward the population center of Tel Aviv but were knocked out of the sky by Israeli defenses.
In a statement on Monday, the Israel Defense Forces said overnight targets included “underground rocket launchers, terror tunnels, training bases, Hamas command posts and weapon storage facilities.” But news reports said the strikes flattened two houses belonging to a single family, killing two children and two adults and injuring 42 people, while a shrapnel burst from another attack killed one child and wounded others living near the rubble of the former national security compound.
The latest exchanges offered a grim backdrop to Egyptian-led cease-fire efforts that have so far proved inconclusive. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was set to join the effort in Cairo on Monday.
Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said there had been a reduction of up to 40 percent in rocket fire from Gaza, while Israeli forces had launched 40 attacks on tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, both at the entrances and along the road leading to them, causing considerable damage.
He said six rocket launching teams and two men on motorcycles were hit while the Israeli forces continued to intercept Palestinian radio signals to urge Gaza residents to steer clear of activists.
In the Israeli strike on Sunday morning, it took emergency workers and a Caterpillar digger more than an hour to reveal the extent of the devastation under the two-story home of Jamal Dalu, a shop owner. Mr. Dalu was at a neighbor’s when the blast wiped out nearly his entire family: His sister, wife, two daughters, daughter-in-law and four grandchildren ages 2 to 6 all perished under the rubble, along with two neighbors, an 18-year-old and his grandmother.
“We were asleep and then there was a terrific blast,” said Abdul-Latif Dahman, who lives nearby and was among more than 100 who stood vigil as the bodies were dug out. “There are no words to describe what happened later, only smoke and dust and heavy silence because the sound shut our ears.”
The smell of bomb residue and the roars of bulldozers filled the air as people clambered over shattered glass and bent iron bars to get a closer look. When two tiny bodies were finally found, rescuers and residents erupted in cries of “God is great!” One worker rushed the girl to an ambulance, while a neighbor grabbed the boy and just ran.
Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the militant Hamas faction that rules Gaza, condemned the attack as a “massacre” that “exceeded all expectations.”
General Mordechai, the spokesman for the Israeli military, said it was “examining the event.”
Fares Akram and Jodi Rudoren reported from Gaza City, and Alan Cowell from London. Reporting was contributed by Isabel Kershner from Ashkelon, Israel; Ethan Bronner, Myra Noveck and Irit Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem; Rina Castelnuovo from Ashdod, Israel; Peter Baker from Bangkok; and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo.
Peta Murgatroyd is a formerDancing with the Starschampion, winning the coveted mirror-ball trophy in season 14 – only her second season on the series – with Donald Driver. The Australia native blogged for PEOPLE.com about competing with Gilles Marini in the current all-star season. The pair was eliminated during Week 8. Murgatroyd has written her final post.
Elimination is always a little disappointing. Gilles [Marini] really wanted to win badly and he was a bit devastated that he got cut. But he's cool with it now. He's okay. I don't think he expected it. He worked really hard and he's the type of person who believes if you work hard, you get results. But it's not always the case with this TV show. Everyone works hard and everyone was amazing. It was such a tough competition, and I believe we were very lucky to have gotten that far.
It's just more heartbreaking because we had ideas for the next week. We were excited to get started on new things. It's just not going to happen, but we both have other things to look forward to now.
Gilles had the talent to make it to that final. He is an absolutely amazing dancer. But the show is about votes, and that's what really killed us in the end.
Gilles and I definitely bonded over this period. We've become very close friends and I'm become friendly with his wife Carole and his children. We're going to stay in touch and think about work ventures together. He's got great stuff ahead of him. He's an amazing person and I've definitely learned a few lessons from him. He's taught me a few things about life.
I love that we get different partners. You walk away from these relationships staying friends, but also learning about each other and about life. It's one of the best things about the show.
Right now I feel great. I'm a little tired from New York because I just flew in, but it was fun. I met up with a few friends when I got in, and then Gilles and I did the foxtrot together on The View. I stayed a few days extra to catch up with friends and Gilles went home. The View was fun.
I pigged out in New York. I had bagels with cream cheese, gelato and some pizza. I kind of hit all the food groups, which is something I usually don't allow myself to do. I have everything in moderation, but I really splurged over there and it felt good. I don't feel guilty about it at all. I'm going straight back to the gym.
LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.
There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.
Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.
In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.
Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.
Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.
SANTA CRUZ — The first slide professor Nirvikar Singh flashed on his PowerPoint showed the faces of six Sikh worshipers gunned down the previous month in Oak Creek, Wis., by a man with white supremacist ties.
As after other attacks since 9/11, the UC Santa Cruz professor explained to students in this fall introductory course, the Wisconsin shooting revealed an abiding ignorance over who Sikhs are — and aren't.
"Despite being in this country for more than 100 years, I think Sikhs are not well understood," said Singh, a 58-year-old economist, dressed in jeans and a midnight blue turban.
Singh holds the university's nascent chair in Sikh and Punjabi studies — the fourth of its kind in California and part of a broader movement to spread the word about the world's fifth-largest religion while promoting scholarship.
For students like David Villalobos, the course offered a chance "to get to know a culture I know nothing about." Guneet Kaur, who along with about a third of Singh's three dozen students is of Sikh heritage, craved the perspective of non-Sikhs and a "sounding board" on the Oak Creek temple massacre.
Like those at UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside and Cal State East Bay, the program was launched with an endowment from a Sikh family honoring a relative. It comes at a time of promising developments in the community's struggle for exposure.
Efforts to include basics on Sikh history, religion and political struggle in California's K-12 curriculum are moving forward after years of delay. Embracing a legislative declaration of November as "California Sikh Awareness and Appreciation Month," Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has recommended instructional materials and attended outreach events.
Meanwhile, California is enacting the nation's strongest workplace religious freedom law, barring employers from rejecting religious accommodation unless they can prove doing so would impose "significant difficulty or expense." Sponsored by the nonprofit Sikh Coalition, it is expected to loosen prohibitions on such Sikh articles of faith as unshorn hair and carrying a kirpan — a small sword that represents self-reliance and readiness to defend the oppressed.
The changes come as Stockton's gurdwara — the oldest and for decades only Sikh temple in the United States — celebrates its centennial and as statewide conferences on Sikh history, religion, art and music proliferate.
"The tide is turning," said Bruce La Brack, a professor emeritus in cultural anthropology at Stockton's University of the Pacific, who began studying California Sikhs in Yuba City nearly 40 years ago.
::
Rooted in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, Sikhism was founded by the 15th century Guru Nanak on tenets of monotheism, egalitarianism and community service.
The tenth and final guru, Gobind Singh, deemed the Sikh sacred scripture to be his eternal successor, and the voluminous text known as the Guru Granth Sahib became the focus of religious life.
In the late 19th century, Sikhs first migrated to British Columbia and then California, where men worked the railroads before turning to peach and almond farming. Discrimination and misconception were ever present.
Today there are an estimated 600,000 Sikhs in the United States, about 250,000 in California, said La Brack. The largest community is in the Bay Area, where Sikhs have thrived in Silicon Valley and built six gurdwaras — among them a $20-million facility in San Jose that accommodates 10,000 worshipers.
Although most Sikhs focused on faith and family, an entrepreneur known as the father of fiber optics launched the philanthropic Sikh Foundation in Palo Alto in 1967 to broadly promote Sikh culture. By 1999, Narinder Singh Kapany had dedicated a gallery of Sikh works at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and endowed the first university chair, at UC Santa Barbara.
"I felt that the Sikh culture needed to be understood in the U.S., and also by the Sikh youth," he said in a recent interview.
Kapany, 85, matched donors with three more California universities. The endowment for the Santa Cruz chair, launched last year, came from a San Antonio family in honor of their son, Sarabjit Singh Aurora, an engineer who had died of cancer.
"He was always very keen to educate kids in the schools about Sikhism," said his sister, Arvinder Kaur Aurora, 42.
The need for mainstream education, she and others note, became more pronounced after 9/11. Mistaken for Muslims because of their turbans, Sikhs were targeted. Among them was an Arizona gas station attendant killed by a self-proclaimed "patriot" who had vowed to shoot some "towel heads."
Two children look through the rubble of their house after an airstrike in Beit Lahiya, Gaza, on Sunday.
GAZA CITY — Israel pressed its assault on the Gaza Strip for a fifth straight day on Sunday, deploying warplanes and naval vessels to pummel the coastal enclave and striking at two media offices here as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a possible “significant” expansion in the onslaught.
His words came as militants in Gaza aimed at least one rocket at the Israeli heartland in Tel Aviv, one day after after Israeli forces broadened the attack beyond military targets, bombing centers of government infrastructure including the four-story headquarters of the Hamas prime minister.
“We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations and the Israel Defense Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation,” Mr. Netanyahu told his cabinet at its routine Sunday meeting, referring directly to the call-up of thousands of reservists that, coupled with a massing of armor on the Gaza border, many analysts have interpreted as preparations for a possible invasion.
“I appreciate the rapid and impressive mobilization of the reservists who have come from all over the country and turned out for the mission at hand,” he said. “Reservist and conscript soldiers are ready for any order they might receive.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks were reported shortly after a battery of Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense shield, hastily deployed near Tel Aviv on Saturday in response to the threat of longer-range rockets, intercepted at least one projectile aimed at the city on Sunday, Israeli officials said. The episode was the latest of several salvoes that have illustrated Hamas’s ability to extend the reach of its rocket attacks.
Since Wednesday, when the latest escalation of the conflict began, Iron Dome has knocked 245 rockets out of the sky, the military said on Saturday, while 500 have struck Israel.
The American-financed system is designed to intercept only rockets streaking toward towns and cities and to ignore those likely to strike open ground. But on Sunday a rocket fired from Gaza ploughed through the roof of an apartment building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. There were no immediate reports of casualties there.
In Gaza City, the crash of explosions pierced the quiet several times throughout the early morning.
Hamas health officials said the Palestinian death toll rose to 53 by early Sunday afternoon, the latest victim a 52-year-old woman whose house in the eastern part of Gaza City was bombed around lunchtime.
A few hours earlier, a Hamas militant was killed and seven people were wounded in an attack on the Beach Refugee Camp, where Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, has a home. Those killed on Sunday included 3 children aged between one and 5, the health officials said.
In Israel, 3 civilians have died and 63 have been injured. Four soldiers were also wounded on Saturday.
The onslaught continued despite talks in Cairo that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said Saturday night he thought could soon result in a ceasefire. Prime Minister Netanyahu said he would consider a comprehensive ceasefire if the launches from Gaza stop.
Saturday’s attack on Mr. Haniyeh’s office, one of several on government installations, came a day after he hosted his Egyptian counterpart in the same building, a sign of Hamas’s new legitimacy in a radically redrawn Arab world.
That stature was underscored Saturday by a visit to Gaza from the Tunisian foreign minister and the rapid convergence in Cairo of two Hamas allies, the prime minister of Turkey and the crown prince of Qatar, for talks with the Egyptian president and the chairman of Hamas on a possible cease-fire.
As the diplomacy intensifies, a delegation of Arab ministers plans to visit Gaza on Tuesday, Reuters reported, while Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary General, is expected in Cairo on Monday.
But Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, denied reports on Saturday that a truce was imminent.
It was unclear whether the deal under discussion in Cairo would solely suspend the fighting or include other issues. Hamas — which won elections in Gaza in 2006 and took full control in 2007 but is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States — wants to turn its Rafah crossing with Egypt into a free-trade zone and seeks Israel’s withdrawal from the 1,000-foot buffer it patrols on Gaza’s northern and eastern borders.
Mr. Netanyahu also spoke with the leaders of Britain, Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, according to a statement from his office. On Sunday, he said he appreciated the “understanding they are displaying for Israel’s right to defend itself.”
But some European leaders seemed to be counseling restraint as much as offering support.
Jodi Rudoren reported from Gaza City, Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem and Alan Cowell from London. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram and Tyler Hicks from the Gaza Strip, Carol Sutherland and Iritz Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem, and David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.
Janet Mayer/Splash News Online; Don Arnold/Wireimage
Taylor Swift appears to be taking her love life in a new direction.
The "Never Ever Getting Back Together" singer is seemingly taking her lyrics to heart as she moves on from recent ex, Conor Kennedy, and enjoys the company of One Direction hottie Harry Styles.
"I had to literally do a double-take," an onlooker tells PEOPLE of finding Styles, 18, with Swift, 22, on the set of The X Factor Thursday morning.
Styles was on hand to watch Swift rehearse the debut of "State of Grace," which she performed later that night on the Fox reality show.
"He was smiling at her while she rehearsed. When she was done he jumped up on stage, picked her up, put her over his shoulder and carried her off stage," the onlooker says. "The whole crew was really surprised."
The young singers were also spotted by X Factor host Mario Lopez, who says he was slapped on the back by Styles during Swift's rehearsal.
"I said, 'What are you doing here,' " Lopez said on his 104.3 MY FM radio show Friday. "And he sort of [pointed] toward Taylor."
Lopez went on to say he later saw the two "hand-in-hand."
A telling sign of the budding relationship may have been a look Styles shared with his bandmate Niall Horan a week earlier after Horan told PEOPLE his favorite song of 2012 was Swift's "Never Ever Getting Back Together."
When asked if he would ever date Swift, Horan gave a small laugh, looked at Styles and answered with a succinct, "no."
LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.
There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.
Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.
In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.
Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.
Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.
After the nightmares started, Davien Graham avoided his bicycle.
In his dreams, he pedaled his silver BMX bike through his neighborhood, heard gunfire and died.
If I stay off my bike, I'll be safe, he thought.
He placed it in a backyard shed, where it sat for months. But Jan. 12, 2008, dawned so spectacular that Davien decided to risk it.
He ate Cap'n Crunch Berries cereal, grabbed the bike and rode a half-mile west to Calvary Grace, a Southern Baptist church that was his haven.
Davien lived with an unemployed aunt and uncle, a former Crip, and five other kids in a cramped four-bedroom house in Monrovia, about 20 miles east of Los Angeles.
Yet as a 16-year-old junior at Monrovia High School, Davien earned A's and B's, played JV football and volunteered with the video club. He cleaned the church on Saturdays for minimum wage.
If I live right, God will protect me.
That afternoon, sweaty from cleaning, Davien reached for his wallet to buy a snack — only to realize he had forgotten it at home.
After returning to his house, he caught his reflection in the front window. He was 6 feet 2 and wiry. His skinny chest was beginning to broaden. He was trying to add weight to his 160-pound frame in time for varsity football tryouts.
He showered, told his aunt he would be right back and again jumped on his bike, size-14 Nike Jordans churning, heading for a convenience store near the church.
At the store, he bought Arizona fruit punch and lime chili Lay's potato chips. He recognized a kindergarten-age Latino boy and bought him Twinkies.
Davien pedaled down the empty sidewalk along Peck Road. He could hear kids playing basketball nearby. As he neared the church, a car passed, going in the opposite direction. He barely noticed.
He heard car tires crunching on asphalt behind him. He glanced back, expecting a friend.
An X marks the spot where Davien Graham was shot. (Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)
Instead he heard: "Hey, fool."
The gun was gray. It had a slide. Davien recognized that much from watching the Military Channel.
Behind the barrel, he saw forearms braced to fire and the face of a Latino man, a former classmate.
The gunman shouted, "Dirt Rock!," cursing a local black gang, the Duroc Crips.
Davien's mind raced: Don't panic. Watch the barrel. Duck.
Suddenly, he was falling. Then he was on the ground, looking up at the church steeple and the cross.
He heard more shots, but stopped feeling them. A chill crept up his legs.
Davien watched the sedan disappear down the street. He saw the boy he had bought the Twinkies for and other children spilling out of a nearby apartment building.
He was having trouble breathing. He felt sleepy.
He tried to raise his eyelids to see if the shooter was returning. He knew gangsters don't like to leave witnesses.
Davien was raised not to snitch.
He grew up south of the Foothill Freeway and Monrovia's quaint downtown, in a frayed, unincorporated area neighbors call No Man's Land.
The oldest of six children, he learned as a small boy not to feel safe anywhere. He played under the towering pines and sweet gum trees of Pamela Park, where gangbangers stashed guns in bathrooms and addicts left crack pipes in sandboxes.
Davien in an undated school photo. (Courtesy of Davien Graham)
He witnessed his first drive-by when he was 4 years old. He came to recognize the sound, "like a loud drum, a thunderclap."
He grew leery of sedans with tinted windows, "drive-by cars," and gangsters who sprinted past his house and across "the wash," a drainage canal, with police in pursuit.
For Davien's safety, a relative had walked him to school — until he, too, was shot and his body dumped in the wash.
Davien had one goal in mind: to make it to his 21st birthday.
Drug dealers, bookies and hustlers called to him from the streets: "Hey, Day Day! You just like your dad."
The comparison made him cringe. Davien's father, Steven Graham, or Steve-O, was a Crip who pleaded guilty to cocaine possession weeks after Davien was born. Steve-O would spend several years in prison.
Afterward, on days Steve-O got high or drank too much, he would put on his sunglasses and take Davien out to the yard for lessons in manhood, often bringing a shotgun.
Davien's mother, Sharri McGhee, also struggled with drugs.
Even so, when times were good, Davien felt as though he belonged to a normal family. His mother would check them into an Embassy Suites hotel so they could swim in the pool. It felt like Disneyland.
Then he woke up one morning and all his videos and the TV and VCR were gone, and he saw his dad walking home because he had sold the car, too.
The best way to become a man is to look at those around me, and do the opposite.
By the time he started school, Davien had learned not to depend on adults for protection. He saw kids whisked away from their parents by the state, or sent to juvenile hall. He promised his younger brothers he would take care of them.
One day he found his pregnant mother lying on the back patio, convulsing. At the hospital, she delivered a premature baby girl with drugs in her system.
The state intervened. At age 9, Davien, two brothers and the baby were sent to live nearby with his aunt and uncle, Joni and Terry Alford, and their two children. Davien thought they acted more like big kids than parents.
The best way to become a man is to look at those around me, and do the opposite.
On Jan. 30, 2007, as Davien and his uncle walked in the neighborhood, they spotted a group of Latino men approaching, heads shaved gangbanger-style, arms covered in tattoos.
Suddenly, everyone was shouting in English and Spanish. Someone fired a gun.
His uncle stumbled off, shot in the calf.
Davien ran, hiding under a low brick garden wall. He could hear the strangers searching for him, their breath close. He wondered where his uncle had gone.
After they left, he bolted home, arriving to see paramedics lift his uncle into an ambulance. Sheriff's deputies followed.
His uncle answered some of their questions. But he never identified the shooter. He wasn't a snitch.
Deputies questioned Davien too. He knew he was supposed to tell the truth, as a Christian. But helping deputies would put his family at risk.
He didn't describe the suspects. No one was arrested.
Davien soon began having the nightmares about getting shot on the silver BMX his uncle had given him.
As Davien lay bleeding on the grass, he played dead.
Through droopy eyelids, he watched cars brake for a stop sign across the street, then zoom off. He recognized one driver, a neighbor who looked away.
She must think I'm a gangster.
A red Ford Explorer slowed, windows rolled down. Davien took a chance.
"Ma'am, I need help, I've been shot!" he yelled.
The car stopped and a white lady with long red hair and glasses jumped out. She grabbed Davien's hand and called 911.
A bullet recovered by a surgeon from Davien’s body was later introduced into evidence. (Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)
It was 4:57 p.m.
"There is a young African American gentleman who has been shot," the woman told dispatch. "There's a lot of children out here as well, if you can kind of hurry."
Davien groped for the cellphone in his pocket just as it started to vibrate.
It was his aunt. She and his uncle had been out on the front stoop and thought they heard gunfire.
"They shot me," Davien said. He hung up so his aunt could call 911.
His uncle soon pulled up in the family's white SUV. He cradled Davien's body.
"I can't move my legs!" Davien cried, loud enough for the 911 operator to hear.
His uncle grabbed the church's water hose and held it to Davien's lips. Davien stared up at Calvary Grace.
I don't want to die.
He felt himself passing out, eyes rolling back into his head. He gripped the grass beneath him. His uncle was shouting his nickname.
"Day Day, come on!"
Paramedics arrived and loaded Davien into an ambulance. Just then his aunt rushed up. She was an imposing figure, heavyset, with tattoos and a deep voice. Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies stopped her.
Had Davien belonged to a gang, they asked?
His aunt pointed to the church. Go ask somebody in there, she said as she climbed into the ambulance. Church folks would set them straight, she figured.
A block away at the convenience store, a witness called 911. She told the operator she saw three or four people flee in a black Nissan.
“I heard the pop, pop, pop… I didn’t want them to see I saw them.”
—Witness
"I heard the pop, pop, pop. I turned, I didn't want to look at the vehicle, I didn't want them to see I saw them."
"Did you actually see them do it?" the operator said.
"Yes, I did."
"Are you going to talk to deputies?"
She paused.
"I'm a little concerned," she said, her voice quavering. "I'm a little bit worried, too, for my safety and for my kids…"
By the time detectives interviewed her, the woman insisted she had not seen the shooter.
That left Davien as the only witness.
Davien awoke in intensive care. He didn't know what day it was. He couldn't tell if the sun was rising or setting.
A thick zipper of a scar sealed his chest. A tube jutted from his stomach, another from his arm. A ventilator covered his mouth, making a Darth Vader sound. He had trouble staying awake.
Below his waist, he felt nothing.
Doctors told him he was at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, listed under a fake name as a precaution. He had been shot twice, in the left flank and right buttock. One bullet lodged in his ribs, another splintered.
Surgeons had labored for five hours to patch his left lung, remove his left kidney and his spleen. They could do nothing to repair his L1 vertebra. His legs were paralyzed.
A nurse brought pad and pen. Davien wanted to tell his family about the shooting. He had recognized the shooter, but he was too scared to write down a name.
Instead, he scribbled: "I forgive them."
Days later, Sheriff's Det. Scott Schulze showed up at Davien's bedside with a series of mug shots.
Davien spotted the shooter immediately. Jimmy Santana had taken gym classes with him in middle school and later joined a Latino gang, Monrovia Nuevo Varrio, or MNV.
The detective asked Davien if the shooter was among the photos.
Davien feared what could happen if he snitched. He also believed as a Christian that it was wrong to lie.
He circled Santana's photo. Beside it he wrote: "It's him."
He was scared. And not just for himself.
Davien's younger brothers looked a lot like him.
Seventeen days after the shooting, on Jan. 29, 2008, deputies arrested Santana at his mother's house in Duarte. He would stay in jail until a preliminary hearing to determine if he should stand trial.
Investigators believed Davien was the victim of a 17-month war between black and Latino gangs, dating to a night when Latino gang members went gunning for Vincent Minor, a black Duroc Crip associate.
About 10 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2006, suspected members of Duarte Eastside, a Latino gang, arrived at Minor's ranch house.
The gang sprayed the house with bullets from a 9mm handgun. One pierced a converted garage, killing Minor's father, 54-year-old Michael Minor, who volunteered as a youth football coach.
Payback came within hours.
Three outraged Duroc Crips spied a Duarte Eastside gang member, Marcus Maturino, sipping a beer outside a house on Shrode Avenue, less than a mile from the first shooting.
The Crips fired with a .45 and a TEC-9 handgun. They missed.
Standing nearby was Nicole Kaster, an aspiring gym teacher. A bullet struck her in the face, killing her. She was 22.
Tit-for-tat retaliation followed — with 71 gang-related shootings by the end of 2007. Investigators struggled to make arrests. Witnesses disappeared, changed their stories or clammed up.
In June 2007, members of Monrovia Nuevo Varrio strode up to a black crowd at a park and opened fire, wounding one person.
Police arrested Santana and charged him with four counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. Later, a judge dismissed that case against him for lack of evidence.
Santana, 18, lived at home with his mother and older brother, a gang associate. Santana had been nicknamed Lil Tuffy by the gang and inducted into a clique called the Pee Wee Locos. On a bedroom wall, he had tacked an ode: "Enemies run from me, they're all cowards, because I'm the shot caller with lots of power."
On Dec. 12, a month before Davien was shot, two black men shot and killed 24-year-old Hector Acosta as he rode his motorcycle on Millbrae Avenue in Duarte. Acosta wasn't a gang member.
Everyone knew what would come next: MNV would retaliate. This time, they would send a gangster who knew how to hit a target and could be trusted not to talk if he got caught.
Davien was in the hospital for eight weeks, undergoing multiple surgeries. He tried to puzzle out why God let him get shot.
His faith wavered. He began to doubt the wisdom of testifying against Santana.
On March 14, 2008, two months after the shooting, Davien was discharged. He returned to his aunt and uncle's house in a wheelchair.
He was a wisp of his former self, 70 pounds lighter. Bones in his toes were brittle; doctors warned that if he ran into something in the chair, they could shatter.
In the weeks after he was shot, Davien was treated at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, where he underwent physical therapy as he adjusted to life in a wheelchair. (Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times)
Surgeons had removed the bullet from his ribs, but they could do nothing about the fragments near his spine. Hot fingers of pain yanked him awake at night, tugging the breath out of him.
God, give me just five minutes without it.
Davien was scheduled to testify at Santana's preliminary hearing four days after being released from the hospital.
He couldn't decide what to do. He worried that every approaching car might bring another drive-by. In a wheelchair, it would be hard to flee.
Relatives offered little help. Some were scared of being attacked; others were bent on revenge. Few trusted the police.
Davien returned to church looking for answers. On Palm Sunday, two days before Santana's hearing, he entered the sanctuary with his aunt and uncle.
He tried to listen to the sermon but he couldn't concentrate. His spine was throbbing again.
His uncle wheeled him out to the church parking lot.
You need to face your fear, his uncle said.
He started pushing Davien toward the front of the church, the site of the shooting.
His aunt joined them, followed by the pastor's wife.
They crept forward. When they reached the sidewalk, their pace turned glacial.
"OK to go further?" his uncle asked.
Davien’s uncle, Terry Alford, wheels him back to the scene of the shooting, urging him to confront his fears. (Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times)
Davien reluctantly nodded.
His aunt sobbed. The pastor's wife held her.
Staring down that barren road, walled off by backyard fences, Davien saw himself back on the grass, bleeding.
He knew three people who had been gunned down in the Monrovia area since he was shot: a 16-year-old girl killed next to the church, a 19-year-old former Duarte High School football player and a 64-year-old man. None was a gang member.
If Santana could shoot me here, he thought, he could shoot anyone anywhere.
Davien couldn't stand. But he could stand up.
"OK," he told his uncle. "I'm straight."
PART 2
Making peace
Making peace
A whirring mechanical lift raised Davien Graham’s wheelchair to the witness stand in Department Four on the third floor of the Los Angeles County courthouse in Alhambra.
Pain burned at the base of Davien’s spine. Then his eyes met Jimmy Santana’s for the first time since the shooting.
He thought Santana seemed much smaller sitting at the defense table than he with the gun in his hand. In his baggy blue jail uniform, he looked like a child, Davien thought.
Two months earlier, on Jan. 12, 2008, Davien had been gunned down as he rode his bike in front of his church, an innocent victim of a gang war that had raged in Monrovia for two years.
He recognized Santana as the shooter who fired from the car. They had gone to school together. Raised by a father and then an uncle who both were Crips, Davien learned that victims and witnesses don’t snitch—they don’t identify their attackers.
But he had shunned gang life for a Christian life, and he believed that Christians don’t lie. So when asked by detectives, he had circled Santana’s photo in a lineup of mug shots.
Now he was being asked to set aside fears of retaliation and testify in open court.
Staring at Santana, Davien said the first thing he remembered saying after the shooting was, “I forgive the person who did this to me.”
Santana stared back, appearing unmoved.
Sitting in his wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down, Davien could see Santana’s mother in the gallery, a small woman with a strained face. A group of young people lounged behind her.
Maybe they were in the car with Jimmy that day.
The prosecutor asked a question, addressing Davien as John Doe, a well-meaning effort to protect his identity. It didn’t matter. Everyone in the room knew Davien.
“Do you see the man who shot you here in court today?”
“On the right side of the courtroom, and he’s wearing a blue uniform,” Davien said.
That was all the judge needed to hear. He ordered Santana to stand trial. Davien was free to go.
But he didn’t feel free.
They must think I’m a gangster and was shot as payback.
Sheriff’s investigators said he wasn’t at risk, and his family didn’t need protection. But he didn’t trust the sheriff’s department. The sheriff had sent a task force to Monrovia to stop the gang violence. They dropped warnings at gangsters’ homes.
His uncle got one. So did Davien.
That upset him. Unlike his uncle, Davien had never joined a gang.
They must think I’m a gangster and was shot as payback.
As Davien left court, the judge ordered two deputies to escort Davien to the parking lot, just in case.
Davien knew his biggest hurdle lay ahead, testifying at Santana’s trial.
As the case dragged on, Davien felt like he was doing time, waiting. He began to believe that his aunt and uncle, Joni and Terry Alford, resented him hanging around, especially when he bumped into their furniture or peed in his shabby wheelchair.
They didn’t seem to fear for his safety. Sometimes when they ran errands, they would leave him alone in the car, feeling trapped and exposed.
Davien wanted to put the trial behind him. He wanted out of Monrovia. He decided his way out was to finish high school and go to college.
It took months for Davien to regain strength. He returned to Monrovia High for his senior year. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)
In September, he returned to Monrovia High and, back among his friends, he thrived. He almost forgot about the trial. Then one day some guys drove by his house, shouting threats. It wasn’t clear if the message was meant for Davien or for his uncle.
Sometime later, Davien was called to the principal’s office. Sheriff’s deputies were waiting. They told him a message intercepted at the county jail, written in gang code, appeared to say he had been targeted.
We’re taking you home to grab some things, deputies said. You can stay in school, but not with your family. You’re being relocated.
Back at the house, his aunt watched him pack. Deputies could not say where he was going, or for how long.
“It’s messed up,” Davien said, trembling. “Not only did he take my legs away from me, now he’s trying to take my whole life.”
Deputies took Davien to stay with a teacher who the officers knew.
Davien felt safer. But he still worried, especially about his brothers at home. One of them had started working at Calvary Grace, the church where Davien had been shot.
Over the next three years, as the sheriff’s task force tamped down the gang war, Davien’s case passed to a new public defender, a new prosecutor and six different judges.
Davien graduated from high school and moved far from Monrovia to attend a four-year college. He learned to get around in his wheelchair, and had more surgeries than he could remember to deal with the bullet fragments left inside his body.
One day last fall, as he was preparing for mid-terms, Davien arrived at his apartment to find a sheriff’s detective and deputies waiting. The trial was starting Jan. 26, 2012. They handed him a subpoena, and it didn’t sit well.
He had agreed to testify. Why were they acting like they had to force him, surprising him at his apartment with his friends?
He called the new prosecutor on his case. He didn’t trust her, so he recorded the call. He asked why she hadn’t come to see him herself and why she sent deputies when she knew he had agreed to show up.
He hung up feeling like he was heading to court without anyone on his side.
Davien could feel jurors’ eyes crawling over his face. He stared ahead, focusing on the prosecutor, just as Schulze had recommended.
Davien, by then 20, shifted in his wheelchair on the stand, looking down at the gallery. He recognized Santana’s mother. She and another son testified that Santana was home with them at the time of the shooting. It was their word against Davien’s. No other witnesses were willing to testify.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Det. Scott Schulze, whom Davien had come to trust, escorts him into court as he prepares to testify. (Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times)
No one from Davien’s family was there. He didn’t tell them about the trial because he didn’t want to put them at risk if gang members showed up.
He tried to clear his throat, his mouth was dry. In a court system handling more than 1800 attempted murder cases at the time, he felt lost.
He hoped the jurors could read him, the way parents read a child. Jurors needed to see that he was no gangster. He just happened to be young and black and in the wrong place.
Surely the lone black juror, a woman staring at him from the front row, would understand.
Santana, 23, sat 15 feet away, slouching into a baggy dress shirt.
The prosecutor asked him to demonstrate how his attacker pointed the gun.
Davien extended his willowy arms, clasping his hands in the shape of a pistol. He winced. His back ached every time he bent his 6-foot 4-inch frame to the microphone.
“Where was it being pointed?” the prosecutor asked.
“At my face.”
He could feel sweat spreading under his arms, wilting the new button-down shirt bought at Target for the trial.
“Did you see anyone in the car?” she asked.
“I saw a driver and a passenger,” Davien said, without looking at Santana.
“Did you know who said ‘Hey fool’?”
“The passenger,” he said.
“Did you get a look at the passenger?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Now Davien glanced at Santana. The accused was biting his shadow of a mustache.
“Did you see his face?” the prosecutor asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Can you look around the court and see if the person is here?”
Davien did not hesitate.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Candace J. Beason looks at Jimmy Santana as Davien points at him and explains that Santana shot him. (Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times)
“Yes, ma’am,” Davien said, “He is sitting next to his lawyer in a collared shirt.”
“How confident were you that he was the person?”
“One hundred percent.”
Not long afterward, Santana’s public defender stood. Davien had once imagined himself looking just like that lawyer: a black man standing tall in an elegant suit.
What was the name of your uncle’s former gang, the lawyer asked.
Davien frowned. “I don’t recall.”
“You don’t recall what gang?”
The prosecutor objected. The judge overruled her. Davien had to answer the question.
“He was a Crip,” Davien said.
Jurors shifted in their seats. Davien feared they were souring on him. They didn’t know how hard he had tried to live right.
They think I got shot for a reason.
At 3:50 p.m. on Feb. 2, after six hours of deliberation, a buzzer sounded signaling a verdict.
The bailiff brought Santana into the courtroom. His mother bowed her head and grasped the hand of her other son, praying in a whisper of Spanish, “Let it be just.”
Four more bailiffs slipped into the courtroom for security.
As the clerk read the verdict, Santana shook his head.
Jimmy Santana reacts to the jury's verdict: guilty on all counts. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)
Guilty on all counts, including willful, deliberate and premeditated attempted murder.
Santana sobbed, curling into himself. He was soon joined by his weeping mother.
Jurors filed out, eyes darting, avoiding the Santanas and searching for the polite young man in the wheelchair who they would later say they believed from the moment he took the stand.
But Davien had gone back to school.
He would later send a statement for the prosecutor to be read to Santana at his sentencing in June.
The shooting broke him, Davien wrote. But he managed to recover and start a new life.
“I hope that you can become a better person during this whole experience,” he wrote to Santana. “Life does not end here for you. You can still do good to the world.”
Santana and his family declined to be interviewed for this article. He was sentenced to 40 years to life.
The next month, on March 17, 2012, Davien was surrounded by a crowd at his apartment. It was his birthday. He had fulfilled his childhood dream: survive to age 21.
Davien belted out a rap song he had composed.
“What do you see when you look in the mirror? Does it fade away or all get clearer?”
Davien’s father, Steven Graham, or Steve-O, was in the crowd. Steve-O had straightened out. Davien made peace with him and his mother—but as friends, not as parents. He had been his own parent for a long time.
He had accepted life in a wheelchair.
School can take me places that walking can’t.
He had fulfilled his childhood dream: Survive to age 21.
Davien, finishing his third year of college, plans to graduate with a degree in video production.
He has a five-year plan, which includes self-producing two rap albums from his mix tapes: “Musical Chair” and “Ramps and Elevators.”
He also plans a clothing line featuring a stylized handicapped logo, an after-school program for at-risk youth and a screenplay titled, “Where there’s wheels, there’s a way.”
At the party, his girlfriend presented a marble sheet decorated with his planned album cover: a photo of Davien in his wheelchair.
“It’s not every day a young man turns 21,” his father said. “You’re grown for the rest of your life—don’t turn back.”
He handed Davien a flute of pink champagne. Davien sipped slowly. Leaning forward to blow out his candles, he made a wish.
