Local News in Brief : Suspected Drug Dealer Killed in Canoga Park
A suspected drug peddler was shot to death Saturday following an apparent dispute with a customer behind a Canoga Park apartment house, Los Angeles police said.
The 38-year-old victim, whose name was withheld until relatives can be notified, was identified as a transient from Nicaragua.
Investigators said the man was shot several times in the 5:30 a.m. attack and was pronounced dead at the scene at the rear of apartments in the 21800 block of Lanark Street.
The site is across from Lanark Park, which police have labeled “the worst area for open-air drug dealing” in the western San Fernando Valley.
Neighbors said the victim slept in an apartment carport storage area and sold rock cocaine in an adjoining alley, Police Lt. Bill Gaida said. The dead man had been arrested in the past on suspicion of drug possession, Gaida said.
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