Local News in Brief : Warrant Issued in Slaying of Calabasas High School Student

Awarrant was issued Friday for the arrest of a Calabasas man suspected of gunning down a classmate on a busy street, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said.

Robert Rosenkrantz, 18, was charged Friday with first-degree murder in the June 28 shooting death of Steven Redman, a 17-year-old Calabasas High School student, a deputy district attorney in the Van Nuys office said.

Rosenkrantz, whose whereabouts is unknown, was also charged with the special allegation of lying in wait, the deputy district attorney said.

If the special allegation is upheld by a jury, Rosenkrantz, 18, could face the death penalty, he said.

Redman was shot to death half a block from his home in a spray of semiautomatic gunfire.

Witnesses to the shooting told sheriff’s investigators that Redman had been driving down Las Virgenes Road when he apparently stopped to talk to someone in a 1979 red Ford Mustang traveling in the opposite direction.

An argument ensued; Redman was shot many times and fell dead in the middle of the roadway, police said.

Police traced the car to Rosenkrantz’s address in a woodsy hillside neighborhood near Old Topanga Canyon Road and Mulholland Highway. Deputies from the Special Weapons and Tactics team staked out the house for four hours and tried to make contact with any occupant before lobbing 26 rounds of tear gas into the home. No one was found inside.

Deputies have been unable to locate Rosenkrantz and said they had extended their search beyond Los Angeles County.