Girl, 16, Fatally Shot; Gunmen Believed to Be Gang Members

When Sandra Maldonado stepped onto the dance floor, other dancers often formed a circle around her. She was that good.

“She loved to dance,” said a friend, one of several who described the 16-year-old as a “sweet, friendly” girl who would rather dance than do almost anything else.

So, though Sandra had planned on staying home Friday night, it didn’t take much to change her mind when some friends stopped by to invite her to go dancing.

“The next thing we knew, at about 1 a.m., a couple of her girlfriends showed up at our house,” Sandra’s half-brother, Sergio Lainfiesta, 27, said Saturday. “They said Sandra had been shot in the head.”

Sandra was riding with her boyfriend in the back of a pickup truck, at Catalina and 3rd streets, just west of downtown Los Angeles, when they were apparently mistaken for rival gang members by a group of men on the street. The men yelled out a gang name and opened fire on the truck around midnight, police said.

Looking for Restaurant

The teen-agers had been looking for a fast-food restaurant after dancing at a club near downtown, officers said.

Only Sandra was hit. Shot twice in the head, she was kept alive on a life-support system until Saturday afternoon, when she was pronounced “brain dead” and removed from life support, according to a spokesman for Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.

The family had initially requested that she be kept alive until relatives from Guatemala--including her grandmother, a brother and a sister--could come to see her but apparently changed their minds.

Sandra’s mother, a native of Guatemala who works as a cook, has worked hard since moving to the United States 20 years ago to support her children, according to relatives.

Although Sandra and her friends have steered clear of the gangs in their neighborhood near Crenshaw and Pico boulevards, they are no strangers to tragedy, according to several friends who gathered Saturday afternoon in the hospital lobby. Without straining, they recalled at least five friends who, in recent years, have died on the streets of Los Angeles as victims of random gang violence.

Taking Precautions

“Yes, I’m scared,” said Angela Rodriguez, 18.

But they have learned to take precautions, such as getting together with friends inside of homes instead of on the streets, her brother added.

“You learn to avoid the gangs as you grow up,” another girl said.

“I hope whoever did this gets what he deserves,” Rodriguez said. “If he would have known Sandra--always joking and playing around--he wouldn’t have done it.”

Sandra’s brother Sergio maintains that the only answer is stepped-up police enforcement.

“This is no longer a safe city,” he said. “Unless you scare them with more police, this is going to continue.”

“We weren’t worried about Sandra--she’s always been a smart girl with good judgment. We worried about the streets,” said Sandra’s older half-sister, Vivian Lainfiesta.

But Sandra’s attitude was, “It’s not going to happen to me,” family members agreed.

Vivian added: “You think you’re special and that your family is special and that nothing’s ever going to happen to you. . . .”

Police said they had a description of the gunman but so far had been unable to identify him. About 20 people were taken in for questioning immediately after the shooting, but most turned out to be witnesses and were released, a police spokesman said.