LOS ANGELES — Before the unspeakable horror that struck the tan stucco house on McFarland Avenue, the blue-collar folks who labor and live in the community called Wilmington had suffered their fair share — not unlike other Americans.
Homes in foreclosure. Refinery workers mulling a strike. Cutbacks at the nearby Port of Los Angeles, where some longshoremen haven’t found employment in months.
The people of Wilmington know what it means to feel fed up and stretched thin, to survive on one income or none at all, to struggle to afford basics.
Perhaps this explains why, when tragedy came to their community, that street and that house, they responded with outrage, anguish and grief. Whether or not the slaughter on McFarland Avenue can be truly blamed on the economic crisis, Ervin Lupoe’s neighbors felt a kinship with a man who claimed that desperate times had driven him to commit the ultimate evil.
The story spread quickly across California and beyond: A man, fired from his job, shot and killed his wife, 8-year-old daughter and two sets of twins, 2-year-old boys and 5-year-old girls, before turning the gun on himself.
Both Lupoe, 40, and his wife, Ana, 38, had been fired from their jobs at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center West Los Angeles. Police say they had lied about their income to try to get cheaper child care.
Other financial pressures were mounting too: Lupoe owed the Internal Revenue Service at least $15,000 and a check to the agency had bounced; he was a month behind on his mortgage plus thousands more on a home equity line of credit.
As word got out and distraught neighbors descended on the scene, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reminded his constituents that help is available in these economic hard times. The crime, he said, should serve “as a warning and a lesson to all of us about the perils and dangers of this current situation.”
Then he provided phone numbers for employment help centers in one breath, mental-health professionals in the next.
Residents speak of coming out of the shadows and talking to each other more, watching for signs, doing what they can to help one another get by and go on.
