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Shots Wound 2 Youths in Gang-Related Incidents

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From United Press International

A ninth-grader was wounded Thursday in a shooting at a junior high school and another teen-ager was hit by birdshot while walking outside Inglewood High School in separate gang-related incidents, officials said.

The shootings continued a wave of violence at local schools, including the stabbing Wednesday of a 15-year-old girl in what police said was an apparent gang initiation rite at Huntington Park High School, and an incident in which a 13-year-old boy pulled a handgun on his teacher at a La Crescenta junior high school Tuesday.

In Thursday’s shootings, a 16-year-old boy was in the Alexander Fleming Junior High School playground about 2 p.m. when he was shot in the back of his right shoulder by a suspect in a black Camaro, according to Tammy Sims, a Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman.

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The ninth-grader, who is believed to be a member of a Harbor City gang, had been waiting for a bus to take him to the San Pedro Skills Center for job training when he was shot, she said.

The youth, whose name was not released, was hospitalized in good condition, Sims said. Three suspected members of a Torrance-area gang were being sought by sheriff’s deputies.

About two hours earlier, Joseph Hardges, 17, was walking with four friends outside Inglewood High School when a yellow van drove by, Police Sgt. Harold Moret said.

Three or four suspected gang members in the van began making gang signs and comments, Moret said.

Hardges, who is not a gang member, and his friends ignored the others and kept walking toward Hillcrest High School, an alternative school for students with problems.

One of the van’s occupants fired a round from a shotgun and birdshot stuck Hardges in the face, hand, arms and upper body. The van drove away and no arrests were made.

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Hardges was taken to Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center, where he was in stable condition, Moret said.

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