Shootings Leave 13-Year-Old Boy Dead, 9 Injured

Nine people, including a woman pushing a baby stroller and a family leaving a convenience store, were among the wounded in a spate of shootings that also left a 13-year-old boy who was playing with a shotgun dead, police said Saturday.

Angelina Rojas, 31, and her daughters Maria, 6, and Bertha, 7, were wounded Friday at a 7-Eleven store in Long Beach when the store’s clerk fired at a customer who had allegedly threatened him, police said.

The clerk, Aoina Uiagalelei, surrendered to police hours later and was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, Lt. Melvin Galwas said.

Rojas and her children and the customer targeted by Uiagalelei, Robin Byrd, 32, were treated at a local hospital and released.

Maria Guerrero, 27, was wounded in the arm Friday as she pushed a stroller carrying her 1-year-old baby and her 3-year-old child on Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima, police said.

A witness said the suspects were shooting at a passing vehicle allegedly carrying rival street gang members when they hit Guerrero, police said.

Guerrero was treated at Pacifica Hospital of the Valley in Sun Valley and released. The children were not injured.

Officers arrested Herman Robinson, 19, of Pacoima on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. A second suspect remained at large.

In other incidents:

* Jonathan Baron, 36, of Redondo Beach was shot and critically wounded as he walked to his car inside a parking structure on Hawthorne Boulevard in Torrance, Lt. Mike Tamble said. Baron was listed in critical condition at UCLA-Harbor General Hospital.

* A 17-year-old boy was in critical condition Saturday after being wounded in the head in a gang-related drive-by shooting in Boyle Heights.

The victim was standing with five to eight fellow gang members in front of a party at a home in the 200 block of North Chicago Street when members of a rival gang drove by and gang slogans were shouted from the car, Los Angeles Police Detective Larry Martinez said. No arrests had been made Saturday.

* A 13-year-old boy died after being accidentally shot in the back while he and three friends were playing with a loaded shotgun in a house in Watts, authorities said.

Antoine Pierce, who lived in the Nickerson Gardens housing project, died at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. While one boy was holding the gun, it discharged and Pierce was fatally wounded, police said.

* A 21-year-old man was shot in the buttocks as he tried to run from gang members at Gladstone’s for Fish, a popular seafood restaurant in Pacific Palisades.

* On Saturday afternoon, an unidentified ice cream man was shot in the abdomen and drove his truck to a South-Central Los Angeles police station for help, authorities said.

The 42-year-old driver was shot by two men at 104th Street and Broadway, Sgt. Lon Salzman said. He was scheduled to undergo surgery at King Hospital.