‘We’re Gonna Find Out Who Did It’ : Three Youths Killed in Latest Explosion of L.A. Gang Violence

The teen-age youth wearing red shoelaces, a red shirt, a red golf cap and a Cincinnati Bengals jacket stood with his arms folded Friday at the corner of 78th Street and Towne Avenue.

His mood was reflective. His thoughts were on the death of one of his “home boys” in the latest flare-up of gang violence on the streets of Los Angeles. And his words took on an air of portentousness.

“We’re gonna find out who did it,” the young gang member said, adding that he believes it is unlikely that future violence can be avoided. “After they shot my homes (fellow gang member)? There’s no way it can end. They don’t do that.”

His partner, Peter Moody, 18, was one of three youths who were shot and killed in what police say were two separate gang-related incidents that took place one hour and 25 city blocks apart Thursday night in South-Central Los Angeles.

In another possibly related incident, a 62-year-old man was shot and seriously wounded when two suspected gang members commandeered his car seven blocks from the site where Moody was slain.

40 Killings This Year

The three deaths increased to 40 the number of gang-related killings in the city this year, contrasted with 28 at the same time in 1984.

Lt. Bob Ruchhoft, commanding officer of the Police Department’s gang activities section, said there is no explanation for the increase.

“It doesn’t appear that we have a gang war going on,” Ruchhoft said. “It looks like this is just a series of isolated incidents involving conflicts between various street gangs.”

Thursday night’s incidents began about 9 p.m. in an alley near the intersection of 51st Street and Avalon Boulevard, where police discovered the bodies of Oscar Chong, 23, and his brother, Jose, 19.

Detective Bernie Skiles of the Police Department’s anti-gang detail, Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH), said that area residents heard several gunshots “and came out and saw a body lying in the alley.”

“A short time after that, a second body was discovered 150 feet east of the first one in an abandoned lot near the alley,” Skiles said.

Detective Ray Paik said the Moody shooting occurred about 10 p.m., during or immediately after an automobile chase that proceeded north on Towne Avenue.

The chase ended when Moody’s car skidded at 78th Street and crashed into a fence at John C. Fremont High School.

At almost the same time that Moody was killed, Dorsey Barnes, 62, was shot in the upper body when his car was stolen at 84th Street and Avalon Boulevard, Paik said. Barnes was reported in stable condition Friday at Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center.

“Determining which incident occurred first is very important to me right now,” Paik said.

Possible Links

Investigators said they were checking the possibility that the gunmen in the Moody shooting abandoned their car and shot Barnes in order to steal his car and escape.

Two occupants of Moody’s car, one of whom was possibly a female, fled after the crash into the high school complex, Paik said, adding that two other people were treated for minor gunshot wounds and released by paramedics in front of the school shortly after the call went out on the Moody shooting.

Although police did not reveal a possible motive behind the killings of the Chong brothers, neighborhood residents said the area is notorious for drug sales, most of which involve the hallucinogen PCP.

A woman whose backyard abuts the garbage-strewn, graffiti-riddled alley where the brothers were killed said that she has observed as many as 100 people engaging in drug sales in the area “all day and all night.”

‘It Gets Very Loud’

“You’re afraid to do anything about it,” the woman said, refusing to give her name out of fear of gang retaliation. “I’m scared just to hear about it. You’re seeing them doing it all the time, and sometimes it gets very loud.”

Young men in the neighborhood said the alley is a favorite hangout of a Latino gang that is friendly with the black gangs that also roam the area. But the youths said that two rival Latino gangs are known to frequently drive through the alley firing shots.

Robert Jackson, 27--who said that he has been out of prison for three months since serving a three-year term for drug sales--believes that the depressed South-Central Los Angeles economy is the main culprit behind the area’s gang and drug problem.

“These youngsters,” Jackson said, pointing to six unemployed black youths who were inspecting the death scene in the alley, “they’re out of school and they’ve got no future. They’ve got nothing to do but make them some money the best way they can--selling weed or something.”

Afternoon Fistfight

Detectives also declined to discuss a possible motive for the Moody shooting. But neighborhood residents said the local gang to which Moody belonged and another “set” from elsewhere in the city had engaged in a fistfight Thursday afternoon.

Lt. Paul Jefferson, the commanding officer of the CRASH detail in the Police Department’s south bureau, said that two arrests were made after the fight. But he added that he saw “no connection” between that incident and the Moody shooting.

The gang member interviewed at 78th and Towne disagreed, saying that members of the rival gang involved in the afternoon fight were the ones who came back to his neighborhood Thursday night.

Asked what will happen next, the youth responded:

“We’ll go over there.”