100 Mourn Woman Slain in Drive-By : Violence: Olivia Divers lived in an alley and was shot on the streets. A diverse group rails against living in a war zone.

PACOIMA — Wearing clothing that ran the gamut from freshly pressed suits to soiled tatters, more than 100 people gathered at a mortuary Tuesday to mourn the death of a popular homeless woman and denounce the street violence that plagues the Pacoima area.

Olivia Little Divers, 49, who lived on-and-off in an old camper shell in an alley, was slain Oct. 12 in a drive-by shooting as she stood in one of her favorite spots on Bradley Avenue near Van Nuys Boulevard.

The Los Angeles Police Department has no suspects and does not know if Divers was the intended target.

“We have no motive, and no eyewitnesses have come forward,” said Foothill Division Detective Gary Holbrook, who attended the services with several other officers, including the leader of the division, Capt. Tim McBride.

“We’re doing whatever we can to get things done. It’s totally senseless. She wasn’t a threat to anyone,” Holbrook said.

During a memorial service punctuated by tears, friends remembered Divers as a helpful influence in a neighborhood plagued by crime and a sense of hopelessness.

“I knew her for all my life, really,” said one man, fighting back tears. “We called her ‘Mother.’ It was her time,” he said, although he believed that the bullet “wasn’t meant for her.”

“She was a very sweet lady, like a mother to everybody,” added Yolanda Martin, a friend of 15 years. “Everybody knew her. And, boy, could she cook! Fried chicken was her specialty. We’re going to miss her.”

Throughout the evening, the theme turned to the violent atmosphere that led to Divers’ death.

“This is a very peculiar gathering . . . and one that will be long remembered,” the Rev. Jeffrey Joseph Sr. of New Heaven Missionary Baptist Church on Pinney Street told the crowd.

“I can’t seem to get clear on why this particular person seemed to bring out so many interested people when so many people in our community are dying. This sister just had an appeal that I can’t explain.”

After the service, mourners carrying candles and flashlights and singing gospel songs marched slowly down Van Nuys Boulevard to the place on Bradley Avenue where Divers was gunned down.

“She was a loving person, you know,” said Daniel Remus, a homeless person, as the group marched. “We would sometimes just sit around, drinking a taste of wine.”

Others remembered how she bantered with gang members, swept the area’s streets and sidewalks and generally had a good word for everyone.

In front of a makeshift memorial that included a shopping cart, a cardboard plaque and dozens of flowers, five ministers and pastors exhorted the mourners to treat Divers’ death as a wake-up call to end the area’s street violence.

At the culmination of the event, the crowd chanted in unison: “No more shooting. No more killing. We want peace. Hallelujah!”