The graffiti on the cement blocks, and tattered pieces of tape that once held signs and posters in Brown's memory, remind White of the tragedy that befell his family.

While the investigation into Brown's death is still going on, his grandfather is trying to mobilize the local community to address the growing problem of drugs, gangs and crime in the young people around him.

"We need to reach out and find out what the answer is, we can't just keep sitting around here asking questions," White says. "We don't want to let this go until something else happens."

While all who knew Brown are still grieving, many of them say they saw this tragedy coming.

Angela Handy, 22, of Sunnyvale says that sometime around the beginning of 2005, she saw a shift in Brown's actions. The former devoted athlete stopped talking about football and began driving nice cars, wearing nicer clothes and behaving oddly, Handy says.

Brown was also injured in a shooting several months ago, but Handy couldn't remember the date. The bullet grazed the back of his head.

"We were all like 'Oh my god, what are you doing!' " Handy says. "That should have been a big wake-up call."

Joanna Harris, 20, who took Brown to her senior prom at Homestead High School, says she knew he had begun selling drugs and tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted it was what he had to do to live a better life.

"I knew 'C' wasn't doing the right things, and I told him there were safer, easier ways to earn money," Harris says.

For years, as Brown's friends got involved in dangerous activities, White says his grandson avoided that path by devoting his time to sports, excelling in baseball and football and coaching youth basketball.

But after leaving Homestead High School and growing too old for youth sports, Brown began hanging out with a different crowd. He was drawn into "the game" (the term many use for the lifestyle of crime and drugs).

"We lost him in that last year," White says, adding that at the time of his death, Brown was planning to go back to school and begin playing football again.

White was an activist before the problem hit so close to home.

In the 1970s, he was a proud member of the Black Panther party, the radical civil rights group founded in the Bay Area. He also worked for Barbara "Mother" Brown, of the United Council of Human Services, in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point area.

White had his own problems with the law but after serving time in prison, he decided to turn his life around.

He now owns hot dog stands in San Francisco and watches over his extended family here in Sunnyvale. He is also an active member of Oakland's Fisher Memorial Church.

It's that closeness to his family that he wants to extend to the community to prevent other grandfathers from losing children to violence.

"Nothing can hit someone harder than this," White says. "But this can't just be talked about, we need to get out there and do something."

White wants to work with the city of Sunnyvale and its residents to start after-school and summer programs similar to those he's seen in San Francisco.

His grandson's friends have used Brown's death as a motivation for their own career goals. Harris, who coaches Pop Warner football cheerleaders, wants to be a high school teacher. Handy just started school at San José State, majoring in social work. She says she hopes to focus on child welfare issues.

"If there's something to be done, and I can help out, I'm going to do it," Handy says.

White used to walk door-to-door in San Francisco looking for people willing to hire young people. He wants to see more employment opportunities in the South Bay for young people during the summer.

"I need to do something in memory of my grandson," he says.

"He had so many friends, and I just want reach out to all of them."

His grandson--one of 17--was last with him the night before the shooting.

Brown, his cousin, Laville Harvey, 22, and a third friend went to a nearby convenience store. According to Harvey, after dropping the friend off near Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road, the two men pulled onto the street, and didn't get more than half a block before Harvey noticed another car following them.

Thinking it was the police, the two men slowed down and put their seatbelts on. Harvey looked back, saw one of the men pulling a gun, and told his cousin to "floor it."

Gunshots rang out, and Brown was hit in the shoulder, causing him to lose control of the car. It crashed into a retaining wall at Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road and Harwick Way. Brown and Harvey tried to flee when Brown was hit again, this time in the head. Harvey ran, hopping fences and dodging shots until he was hit in the stomach.

He ended up near a former nurse's home who'd already called the police. She took care of Harvey until medical personnel arrived. Brown was declared dead at a local hospital.

"You just don't think something like that will happen to someone you know, especially at his age and here in Sunnyvale," Handy says.

Sunnyvale police have since arrested San Jose residents Eric Pape, 19, and Eric Furlanicbabic, and Los Gatos resident Bryson Cole, 19, and charged each man with murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Cole was arrested in Fresno.

White says that Brown's death--while only the second homicide in Sunnyvale this year--is just another sign of a growing problem.

Residents and officers alike are seeing an influx of crime, drugs and gang activity into Sunnyvale from neighboring San Jose, East Palo Alto and San Francisco.

"It's coming down here fast," White says.