2 Charged With Murder in Drive-By Shooting

Two gang members have been charged with murder in a drive-by shooting in which a big-game rifle was used to kill a man and injure another at a North Hollywood birthday party, authorities said Wednesday.

A 17-year-old North Hollywood youth, a member of the Grant High School football team, pleaded innocent to the charge Wednesday in Sylmar Juvenile Court, while Chad Elliot Algarin, 19, of Glendale, pleaded innocent Tuesday, authorities said.

The suspects, who were in a moving car, are accused of firing a shot from a Winchester magnum rifle at a house in the 7200 block of Vineland Avenue where several people were gathered out front for a birthday party Sept. 18.

The shot struck Jose Lopez Maldonado, 22, who was killed. The same bullet hit and seriously injured Mario Urbina-Figueroa, 23. Urbina-Figueroa, who had been shot through the chest, was recently released from St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank after being treated for several weeks.

“The gun used is for hunting big game,” said Edward Nison, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney. “The one shot went through the two victims, through the exterior of the house and inside.”

The shooting took place in an area where two rival gangs often clash, but the victims of the shooting were not gang members, police said.

“No one attending the birthday party was connected to a gang,” Detective Ted Ball said. “The two victims were innocent bystanders.”

The suspects may have mistakenly believed that there were rival gang members at the party, Ball said. The two were arrested last week after police were able to trace the weapon used in the shooting.

Detectives said they identified the weapon through a bullet casing found on the street after the incident. Gun dealers in the San Fernando Valley were then contacted, and detectives found a shop where a magnum rifle recently had been bought. Police said they then traced the weapon to the two suspects.

Nison said that he will ask a judge to order the juvenile suspect to be tried as an adult at a court hearing scheduled Nov. 30.

At Grant High on Wednesday, officials said the football player’s arrest was a surprise.

“It was a shock to have someone actively involved in the athletic program involved in such a crime,” said Joseph Walker, an assistant principal in charge of athletics. “We work very hard to suppress gang activity.”