Five Gang Members Arrested in Raids After ‘Pay-Back’ Killings

A team of 92 officers from several law enforcement agencies staged a series of raids Tuesday that resulted in the arrests of five street gang members suspected of two “pay-back” murders in a middle-class section of West Los Angeles.

The targets of the raids were members of a Santa Monica street gang that police believe was attempting to take revenge against a West Los Angeles gang on April 18, when two people were killed at Stoner Park. Police said the park, at Stoner and Nebraska avenues, is a gathering spot for the West Los Angeles gang.

Edward Moreno, 19, and Arturo Meza, 16, were shot and killed at the park shortly before midnight.

Alex Padilla, a Santa Monica police investigator, said the Santa Monica street gang members seemed to be attempting to avenge an April 13 shooting and stabbing incident during which Santa Monica gang members were allegedly attacked by West Los Angeles gang members.

The victims in the second attack did not appear, however, to be what police describe as “hard-core,” or active, members of the West Los Angeles gang.

One was “a peripheral associate” and the other did not appear to be a member, said Lt. Dan Lang, a member of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) program, which coordinated the investigation.

Four CRASH members from the Police Department’s West Los Angeles bureau and Santa Monica’s Padilla worked almost full-time on the case during the last month, Lang said.

Tuesday’s raids at 16 locations, mostly in Santa Monica, resulted in the confiscation of about 20 handguns, shotguns and rifles, Lang said.

Booked on suspicion of murder were Edward Macias, 22; Victor Gallegos, 20, and three 17-year-olds whose names were not released by police. All live in Santa Monica.

Two other people, also believed to be members of the Santa Monica gang, were arrested after police found that they had outstanding arrest warrants.