Five Shot in Apparent Drug Deal Gone Awry

Five suspected gang members were shot and wounded, one critically, late Thursday afternoon near a crowded children’s play area at a Pacoima housing project, after a rock cocaine deal apparently went awry, Los Angeles police said.

Children ran away screaming as the shooting broke out, witnesses said. Nearby teen-agers and adults shuttled many of the youngsters to safety behind walls and inside apartments from their swing-sets, a baseball field and a sandbox where one of the victims fell bleeding.

Police were searching Thursday night for two gunmen, one armed with a large caliber pistol, who witnesses said sped away in a car from the shooting scene at Van Nuys Pierce Park Apartments at 12700 Van Nuys Blvd.

‘It appears to be a gang-related, drug-related shooting,” Police Sgt. Sol Polen said.

A quantity of rock cocaine was found near the shooting victims, Sgt. Dennis Pelch said. One victim was wearing an electronic beeper, an indication that he was involved in drug dealing, Pelch said.

The five victims, whose names were not released, were identified by the red colors they wore as members of the Pacoima Piru Bloods gang, Pelch said. One was in critical condition at Holy Cross Hospital, a spokeswoman said. She would not elaborate. The others sustained less serious wounds.

About 50 to 100 children and teen-agers were playing in the grassy courtyard of the sprawling project when the shooting erupted at about 5:15 p.m., police said.

Officer Hears Blasts

“I was just out here playing baseball and I heard the shots--boom, boom, boom,” said one 10-year-old boy. “I looked and saw one guy bleeding in the sandbox.”

Officer Marc Pooler was taking a burglary report nearby, when he heard what he thought were cherry bombs exploding and responded.

“But then I saw people running and shouting, ‘they’re shooting people up, they’re shooting people up,’ ” Pooler said.

“All they (the victims) said was that people came by and shot us,” Pooler said. “They were not going to tell us anything at that point.”

One of the child witnesses told Pooler he heard the group arguing before the shooting broke out.

“I think my daughter has been very traumatized seeing all this happen,” said a mother whose 6-year-old girl was playing in the sandbox. “I’m just relieved she was not hurt.”

The 430-unit project, home to about 4,000, has long attracted drug dealers. In the late 1970s and early 1980s it was reputed to be the PCP dealing center of the San Fernando Valley.

But intense police patrols and an activist building management company began to reduce drug dealing in 1984.

One resident, Roland Francis, said Thursday that there had “been almost no violence” in the two years that he has lived in the project. However, Francis added, recently the sound of gunfire has been “starting to pick up again. It’s beginning to get regular.”

Times staff writers Steve Padilla and Carlos Lozano contributed to this article.