2 Dead, 3 Hurt in Continuing Gang-Related Violence

Two men were killed and three wounded in gang-related shootings in Los Angeles County on Friday night and early Saturday, even though a special police task force of 200 officers patroled the streets of South-Central Los Angeles trying to curtail such violence, authorities said.

No arrests have been made in the shootings, which occurred in South Los Angeles, West Covina and the unincorporated area of Florence.

Between 6:30 p.m. Friday to 3 a.m. Saturday, members of the task force arrested 121 suspected gang members on everything from curfew violations to narcotics possession. They also issued 213 traffic citations, impounded 58 cars and seized 20 grams of cocaine, 12 grams of marijuana and eight guns.

2 Killed, 7 Wounded

The task force, organized after the gang-related deaths of two people and the wounding of seven others on Thursday, was supposed to be on the streets Saturday night, too. But the sweep was called off because, police said, inclement weather would curtail street violence. “As a rule, when it rains like this they (gang members) stay inside,” said Detective Verne King of the police Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums detail. “When talking about gang activity, they usually congregate outside.”

The rain also would have forced police to shift dozens of motorcycle officers to cars, depleting the supply of patrol cars in other areas of the city, King said.

The task force teamed officers from the Police Department’s CRASH detail and elite Metropolitan division with the California Highway Patrol, the California Youth Authority and the county Probation Department,

Earlier, Joseph A. Banzali, 23, was shot around 11:15 p.m. Friday from a passing car in South Los Angeles. He was riding with suspected gang members in another car at the time, police said. He died shortly after midnight at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

Shot From Passing Car

In the Florence area, Veranzo Donaldson, 18, was shot from a passing car while walking with two friends around 2:25 a.m. Saturday. He died at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center an hour later, sheriff’s investigators said.

“The shooting was definitely gang-related,” Deputy Richard Dinsmoor said.

In another drive-by shooting, this time in West Covina, a man was shot in the stomach while standing in the yard of a friend’s home at about 2:10 a.m., police said. Harold Beale, 21, who was hospitalized in stable condition, told police that the shooting was “possibly a retaliation for some gang activity.”

There were two other gang-related incidents in South Los Angeles. Both occured in front of restaurants.

An alleged gang member was shot in the leg by a restaurant employee after he and five other men allegedly tried to rob a couple standing outside a hamburger stand around 11:30 p.m. Friday. Two hours later, two men in a car fired shots at a group of people standing outside a fast-food restaurant. One man, who was wounded in the leg, told police he thought the shooting was gang-related.

50 Killed This Year

So far this year, more than 50 people have been killed or wounded in gang violence. On Tuesday, Los Angeles County supervisors voted to give $1.5 million in emergency funds to the Sheriff’s anti-gang unit.

“We are in a state of war,” said Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

If the violence continues at this same level, authorities said, the number of deaths in 1988 in the county will hit a record.

Sheriff Sherman Block said 387 people were killed in the county last year as a result of gang violence. The death toll this year could reach 450 or more, he said.

Meanwhile, Don Jackson, a black police sergeant from Hawthorne went back to Westwood Saturday night to stage a small demonstration aimed at bringing attention to what he said is racism within Los Angeles-area police departments. Jackson was arrested two weeks ago in Westwood for interfering with a police investigation. But this time there were no arrests.

Jackson, 29, who is on disability leave from the police force, charged that police were harassing blacks in Westwood following beefed-up patrols in the area after the gang-related death of a Long Beach woman last month.

After Jackson’s arrest, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said he had brought youths to Westwood to bait and harass police officers. Gates claimed that some of the youths were “known gang members.” Jackson said, however, that the youths were victims of “arbitrary harassment” because of their race.

Jackson and half a dozen USC students stood on a Westwood street corner in the rain Saturday night as five police cars patrolled the area without incident.