Police Responding to Drive-By Shooting Wound Teen

Police investigating a drive-by shooting fired eight shots and wounded a teen-age gang member after the youth allegedly pointed a gun at officers, authorities said Sunday.

The 16-year-old was hospitalized in serious condition.

The incident, which took place in the Westlake area Saturday night, began with a drive-by shooting that apparently injured no one but sent four to five youths fleeing, Los Angeles police said.

Investigators said four uniformed officers had just ordered dinner at a restaurant in the 2000 block of West 8th Street when they heard shots.

The officers left the restaurant and spotted the youths--all identified by police as gang members.

When the youths saw the officers, all but one ran. The one who stayed was carrying a small handgun and began running toward the officers, police said.

“The officers yelled, ‘Stop, drop the gun,’ ” Lt. William Hall of the officer-involved shooting team said. But the youth did not lower his weapon.

Two of the officers, James Simoneschi, 41, a 16-year veteran, and William Jarrell, 41, an 18-year veteran, fired four times each from their 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistols.

The youth was struck at least twice--once in the left leg and once in the buttocks.

The teen-ager, a neighborhood youth whose name was withheld because of his age, dropped the gun and police arrested him.

Officers said the weapon he had been holding was a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol that had been cocked.

On Sunday, a spokeswoman for County-USC Medical Center said the youth was in serious but stable condition.

The 16-year-old will face charges of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer when his condition improves, Hall said.

In another apparently gang-related incident, a 13-year-old boy was shot in the head during a South Los Angeles turf dispute. The youth was in critical condition Sunday, hospital authorities said.

The victim and another youth, both affiliated with a gang, were walking through South Park about 11 p.m. Friday near 51st Street and Avalon Boulevard when they met three members of another gang, police said.

During an argument over which gang controlled the park, one of the rival youths pulled a gun and fired two or three times, wounding the boy, police said.

In a third shooting, police said, a man was wounded in the leg when he came upon suspected gang members attempting to break into his car on Leroy Street southeast of Main Street near downtown about 1 a.m. Saturday. Three suspects were arrested.