It Was Just Another Party--Until Two Were Killed

The L-shaped tan stucco house with a three-quarter-acre lot and a view across the San Gabriel Valley looks more like a place for a party than a double murder.

And it started out that way Friday night.

The flyers that Victor Sanchez and friends handed out at area high schools said: “6:30 p.m. till police” and were illustrated by a drawing of a squad car with a flashing light.

The police showed up by 9 p.m., much earlier than expected, at Sanchez’s house in the 2300 block of Annadel Avenue in Rowland Heights. They arrived moments after one teen-ager pulled out a gun, fired about four shots and fled, said a Sheriff’s Department spokesman.

A reputed gang member, Aaron Martin Vaughn, 16, of Rowland Heights, lay dead. A bystander, Christopher William Baker, 18, also of Rowland Heights, lay dying.

The killer remains at large.

So does the killer of an unidentified woman who died in an allegedly gang-related, drive-by shooting in Lynwood Saturday afternoon.

The widespread violence has forced some Southland residents to acknowledge gang violence as epidemic.

“There is a problem everywhere,” said Linda Brittian, who lives across the street from where the Rowland Heights violence occurred.

One teen-age witness said that before the shootings, he overheard the gunman say, “ ‘I’m gonna shank someone,’ or something like that.”

Just before the shooting, Vaughn and his killer were talking, witnesses said. Then Vaughn grabbed a crutch from someone and swung it at the gunman’s friend, who ducked out of the way.

Vaughn wasn’t quick enough, however, to side-step all the bullets the gunman then fired from a semiautomatic, small-caliber handgun. One bullet struck Vaughn point blank in the chest, witnesses said.

Another whizzed across the yard, among a crowd of at least 300 teen-agers, before striking Baker, said a neighbor, pointing at the spot where he looked through a fence and saw the wounded youth.

Several teen-agers said Vaughn belonged to a gang. But at least one witness said people were making unfair assumptions. “I think he was shot at because he was wearing a red Santa Claus hat,” said Mark Getachew, 16, noting that youths with the gunman wore blue. He said sporting the color of a rival gang would be enough to cause trouble.

Neighbors said the whole set-up spelled trouble from the start.

“Who the hell invites people (to a party) with a flyer? Come one, come all,” asked a man who lives next door. He said he spent Saturday morning gathering beer bottles from his lawn and driveway.

Sanchez, 18, called the get-together a one-time occurrence, a going-away send-off for his upcoming trip to Mexico.

His friend Kirk, who preferred not to give his last name, said area teen-agers frequently had similar parties, with less tragic results. But just last weekend, he added, several youths were beaten at a house party only a few blocks away--an account other neighborhood teen-agers confirmed.

Many officials take these house parties seriously. In October, San Fernando Valley community leaders debated different strategies for dealing with such raucous social gatherings that divert police from other concerns and occasionally lead to violence and injury. They discussed options ranging from stronger curfew enforcement to city-supervised party zones.

In Rowland Heights, several residents said they never expected an outburst of gang violence in their multi-ethnic neighborhood of equestrian trails and San Gabriel Mountains vistas.

Said one man, “I thought this stuff only happened in South-Central L.A.”