Mob Chases Man Down Broadway, Kills Him

An angry mob of 15 men wielding sticks and pipes chased a man for two blocks before beating and stabbing him to death on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles early Friday, police said.

The victim, a 20-year-old transient, apparently became involved in an argument with a group of men at Main and 5th streets shortly before 1 a.m., said Police Detective John Dunkin, who refused to speculate on the nature of the argument or motive for the attack.

The mob caught up with the man in front of the Palace Theater, 630 S. Broadway, Dunkin said. The man was beaten and stabbed eight or nine times with a four-inch knife and died on the northbound lanes of Broadway. His name was being withheld pending notification of relatives.

“It looks like a blade out of a Buck-type folding knife,” Dunkin said of the murder weapon found bent at the scene. “It’s the weapon of preference, of choice in this type of attack.”

Dunkin said the victim had apparently been robbed.

Witnesses to the early morning attack flagged down a police patrol car and officers arrested four men as they were running from the scene minutes after the stabbing, Dunkin said.

The suspects are James Turner and Adrian Norris, both 19; Robert Riley, 18, and Gerald Jackson, 25. All were arrested on suspicion of murder and were being held Friday at Parker Center without bail, Dunkin said.

Though police would not speculate on a motive for the killing, Dunkin did say that the area is the site of frequent sales of crack cocaine and that an almost identical mob killing occurred at nearby 6th and Spring streets last month.

‘Drug Deal Gone Bad’

“In that case, it was definitely a drug deal gone bad,” Dunkin said of the killing of Fred Matthews, 38. Five suspects were arrested in Matthews’ killing, he said.

Almost all of the businesses on Broadway’s busy shopping strip were closed at the time of the killing. During the day, the site of the attack is a busy bus stop. Most merchants and passers-by said they had not heard about the killing.

“The last movie here ends at 10:30 (p.m.),” said Maria, an usher at the Palace Theater who asked that her last name not be used. “People don’t come to the late movies because it’s dangerous at night. There’s nothing but winos out on the street.”

Thomas Bartsouleas, manager of a video arcade next to the theater, said he closed his business at 8:30 p.m. He said he found yellow police tape on the street when he opened his store Friday morning.

“If there were that many people, it must have been a gang,” Bartsouleas said. “I don’t think it was regulars” in the neighborhood.

‘Become Safer and Safer’

Dunkin said the mob killings occurred during a period when homicides in the downtown Skid Row area have declined. “It’s become safer and safer all the time,” he said. “There’s less killings. They seem to be more focused and less random.”

But Mike Neely, director of the Homeless Outreach Project on 5th Street, said Friday’s killing is similar to the drug-related assaults that have become an everyday occurrence on Broadway and other downtown streets.

“A guy tries to get the drugs for free and a group of people chases him down the street and beats the hell out of him. That’s the way these things happen,” Neely said. “I’ve seen it happen before. I’ve seen guys beaten with baseball bats. I’ve seen it on Broadway quite often.”