Thirty minutes before the meeting at a South Los Angeles church was supposed to start, the parking lot was already full.
Hundreds of people packed the pews of Hamilton United Methodist on Sunday — so many that some were left standing even after the choir lofts were filled. There were elected officials, community activists and gang intervention workers. LAPD commanders and a police commissioner. There were mothers whose sons had been killed on the city's streets, and one man who had been shot himself a month ago.
Their goal: Stop the violence plaguing South L.A.
"We're going to take our communities back," City Councilman Curren Price said.