Drive-By Shooting Wounds 7 Near South-Central L.A. Store

Seven people standing in front of a liquor store in South-Central Los Angeles were wounded late Wednesday in a drive-by shooting that police described as gang-related.

A pregnant woman in the group who threw herself to the ground to avoid the gunfire went into premature labor and had to be hospitalized.

The shooting occurred about 11:20 p.m., shortly after the liquor store in the 5400 block of Central Avenue had closed, Los Angeles Police Detective Bernie Skiles said.

The four men and four women were clustered in the street and on the sidewalk when a dark sedan with three to five people inside drove by, Skiles said.

The car slowed as it approached the group and shots, possibly from a semiautomatic weapon, were fired from the vehicle.

Sharon Hunt, 17, was across the street from the store on her way from a cousin’s house to her own home on 54th Street when the gunfire began.

“Just as I got to the corner I saw a dark blue car coming in my direction with a bunch of people inside and then I just heard a lot of shots,” she said. “I ran back down the street and crouched down. Then after the shots stopped people across the street were hollering and one of them sounded like someone I knew, so I went over and people were shot all over the place.”

Hunt found that one of the victims was her boyfriend, John Smith, 17, who had been shot in both legs and an arm.

Police estimate that at least 20 shots were fired, hitting seven of the victims, pockmarking the bottom concrete walls of the liquor store and shattering the windows of a glass shop next door.

Most of the victims suffered multiple wounds to the arms and the legs. None were seriously injured, however, and all but two were treated and released from area hospitals.

Patricia McDowell, 31, was in stable condition at the California Medical Center with a gunshot wound in the leg. Yolanda Austin, 25, nearly seven months pregnant, was also in stable condition after doctors were able to interrupt labor contractions that began when she fell on her stomach, hospital spokeswoman Stephanie Wilson said.

Wilson said the fetus was not injured by the fall.

Other victims were identified as Smith, Edward Charles Perry, 27, Henry Martindale, 31, Hope Shareamo, 38, Jacqueline Chew, 38, and James Johnson, 53.

Police say they have found no apparent motive for the shooting but said the incident is characteristic of random gang violence.

“They didn’t care who they hit to have injured that many people. They just shot at whoever was there,” Skiles said.