Teen-Ager Fatally Shot Near School : Man, 40, Wounded in South L.A.; Assailant, 13, Arrested

A teen-age boy was shot to death and a father picking up his daughter after classes was wounded in a dispute Wednesday afternoon outside a junior high school in South-Central Los Angeles, police reported.

Two school security officers captured a 13-year-old boy and turned him over to police. Also in custody was another person whose connection to the shootings was not immediately known.

Argument Leads to Trouble

Witnesses said the violence erupted shortly after 3 p.m. when Jose Mendez, 40, tried to drive away with his 15-year-old daughter from a sports field at the rear of George Washington Carver Junior High School at 4410 McKinley Ave.

Mendez, the witnesses said, got into an argument with a youth who was standing in the street blocking his way. Lt. Victor Ramirez of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Newton Division said Mendez apparently “honked the horn a couple of times,” but the youth refused to move.

Angry words ensued, witnesses told police, and Mendez got out of the car, only to be shot by the youth with a .38-caliber pistol. Mendez suffered a wound in the abdomen.

The unidentified suspect, one witness said, then apparently ran down an alley and emerged on 45th Street, where he reloaded. At Wadsworth Avenue, police were told, he encountered another boy, 15 or 16 years old, and shot him.

As the victim tried to run away, the witness said, the young gunman shot again, hitting him in the head and killing him.

Assailant Is Captured

Los Angeles Unified School District officers Paul Mikos and Keith Braden, who heard the shots and found the fleeing youth on 45th Street, promptly took him into custody.

At Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, where Mendez was taken by helicopter, spokeswoman Maggie McPhillips said he was in “critical but stable condition” and was undergoing surgery late Wednesday.

Asked if the two shootings were gang-related, Ramirez said, “It doesn’t appear to be.” He said officers had not yet figured out a motive for the fatal shooting of the boy, whose name was withheld.