Slaying of Man May Be Tied to 7 Other Killings

The police investigation into the killing this week of a 38-year-old Korean-born man has been turned over to detectives handling the murders of seven other men in Los Angeles, including four transients who were shot to death as they slept on downtown streets, a Los Angeles police spokesman said Friday.

The latest victim, Chang Kang, was visiting friends in Koreatown when he was shot to death early Tuesday morning near Manhattan Place and West 7th Street, Cmdr. William Booth said. Kang had most recently been living in Texas.

All seven other victims killed in recent weeks were shot to death on the street early in the morning too, police said.

“We are assigning this case to the same robbery-homicide detectives who are investigating the cases of the other people shot and killed early in the morning,” Booth said. “They are including this case in their investigation. We don’t know if there is any connection.”

Booth would not discuss the nature of the men’s wounds or the types of weapons used.

The body of the first transient was found Sept. 13 and the latest on Sept. 29. According to flyers that have been circulated throughout Skid Row, police are looking for a tall black man, weighing between 150 and 170 pounds, with an Afro hair style.

The killings of the three other men, none of them described as homeless, occurred between Sept. 4 and Sept. 30.