Gang Killings Snuff Out 3 More Lives : Frustrated Police Add Up Toll of 7 in Less Than Week

Gang violence exploded in the streets of Los Angeles again, leaving three men shot to death, police said.

The killings came after a bloody four days in which four others were killed and 18 were wounded in the Southland, and in which frustrated police acknowledged that their recent crackdown on street crime--including sweeps by as many as 1,000 officers--has had limited success against random attacks from moving vehicles.

The shootings late Monday and early Tuesday morning brought the number of people killed in city and county gang violence this year to 159, police officials said.

In the first attack, Charles (C. C.) Ticer, who was a known member of a Crips gang, was with several men who apparently were painting over another gang’s graffiti on an apartment house wall in the 800 block of West 42nd Place, according to police. About 9:30 p.m., several people drove by in a red car, shouting gang slogans and shooting at the men in front of the wall. Ticer, wounded in the head, died instantly.

Another Fatal Shooting

About four hours later, a 31-year-old man was shot to death in front of a liquor store at Vermont Avenue and West 43rd Place, two blocks from where Ticer was killed.

The victim, Shapirio Tyrone McMillon, was not a gang member. But police, relying on information from witnesses and the absence of other motives, said they suspect that McMillon was killed in retaliation for the Ticer shooting. The gunman fled in a waiting red and white compact car.

McMillon’s mother, Bertha McMillon, a retired seamstress, said tearfully: “My son never had anything to do with gangs in his whole life. He had just left the (liquor) store and was on his way home, when they came driving by and shot him.

“He was a good son, he helped support me and worked every day as a warehouseman for the city. The only thing he, or any of my other children (two sons and a daughter) had been in trouble for was traffic tickets. He never hurt anybody; I just can’t understand it.”

In the third shooting, Anthony Williams, 19, a gang associate, according to police, was shot to death about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday in the 600 block of East 87th Street. A suspect, Willis Burnley, was arrested and booked on suspicion of murder, according to Police Detective Charles Merritt of Southeast Division. A second suspect was being sought.

On Tuesday afternoon, in a scene that has been repeated with increasing frequency in some South Los Angeles neighborhoods, relatives and neighbors gathered to mull over the details of the attacks and to express dismay and fear about the violence.

“I heard the shooting and crying; I was so scared,” said Kim Amuda, who lives across the street from where Ticer was shot. “Another one of those shootings happened next door last year, too. I would move, but I don’t have any money,” she said.

Wounded Earlier

Ticer, whom police called a longtime gang member, had been wounded previously in a gang-related fight, according to Miguel King, 19, who said he is a cousin of Ticer. After that shooting, King said, Ticer had to wear a colostomy bag.

“Before his mother died, he used to tell me all the time that all he wanted was to buy her a nice big house,” King said. “He wasn’t the type to go around shooting people. He just liked writing on walls.”

Ticer was in the neighborhood Monday night to visit his girlfriend, King said. He was watching some other gang members painting out rival gang graffiti, and covering it with writing of their own, when he was killed.

“I heard noises and there he was lying dead in the driveway,” King said. “These killings don’t make sense. Why are these gangs killing each other instead of helping the neighborhood?”

Gang members were responsible for an average of one drive-by shooting a day in South Los Angeles during the first five months of the year, Police Lt. Bob Ruchoft told a City Council committee Monday. There were 299 drive-by shootings through the end of May, 20% more than a year ago. Of the 96 gang-related homicides in the city through May, 38 were the result of drive-by shootings.