Girl, 2, Dies as Assailants Shoot Up Cars

A 2-year-old Pasadena girl riding with her mother and grandmother was killed in a flurry of gunshots fired into two vehicles carrying adults, teen-agers and children in the Riverside County community of Rubidoux, authorities said. Witnesses said the assailants were gang members.

Karina Williams was pronounced dead at Riverside Community Hospital shortly after the Tuesday evening shooting, Sheriff’s Lt. Nick Padilla said. Several shots were fired in the attack, which occurred less than a block from a home where the family had been visiting relatives, Padilla said.

Six adults and two teen-agers, plus four small children, were traveling in a station wagon and another vehicle when the shooting spree began, Padilla said. No one else was injured in the attack.

Evelyn Smith, 36, a cousin of the dead girl’s father, said Wednesday that at least 20 gang members had gathered outside Smith’s Rubidoux home Tuesday evening. She said they threatened two teen-age friends who had come with the girl’s mother, Rebecca Michelle, 22, from Pasadena to visit her.

Smith said she called authorities about 6 p.m. Two sheriff’s deputies arrived and told the gang members to leave, she said.

But the gang members returned, driving past the home flashing guns, Smith said. She said that, because of the apparent danger, she decided to accompany the visiting relatives and the two teen-age friends back to Pasadena and to take two cars.

Noticed Truck

Michelle, Karina’s mother, said she noticed a pickup truck following the two vehicles just before the shooting erupted at the intersection of La Canada and Mary Ellen drives.

Padilla said several shots struck both vehicles in the sides and rear. One of the shots passed through the tailgate and back seat of the station wagon, striking Karina in the chest, Padilla said. Authorities declined to say what weapons may have been used.

“They just kept shooting, they just kept shooting,” Michelle said of the assailants. “I said, ‘Grab my baby!’ But she wasn’t breathing. . . . My baby was lying in the back bleeding.”

The two cars sped away from the shooting scene to a convenience store about a mile away, where family members called police, Padilla said.

“The child was so gravely injured, that the officer took the child directly to the hospital rather than waiting for an ambulance,” Padilla said.

Padilla said the neighborhood where Smith lives has been the scene of sporadic drug and gang-related shootings in recent years.

Authorities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties have said that many gang members have moved from Los Angeles to the Inland Empire, bringing with them a violent drug trade. At least 2,000 Los Angeles gang members and associates either live or operate in the two counties, according to authorities.

Smith, who moved to Rubidoux from Pasadena two months ago, said she was certain the shooting Tuesday was gang related.