Drive-by Shooting at School Playground Wounds Boy, 15
A 15-year-old boy was shot by youths in a car who fired toward a junior high school playground in South-Central Los Angeles while dozens of students milled around nearby on their morning break, authorities said.
The boy, wounded in the lower left arm, was in good condition at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, hospital officials said.
Dozens of students were in the playground at Mary McLeod Bethune Junior High School at the time of the shooting, but there were no other injuries, Los Angeles police said.
Detective Gil Herrera said the attack appeared to be gang-related, but he was uncertain of the motive.
Herrera said he was also unsure whether the victim was the target of the attack or an innocent bystander.
The incident occurred about 10 a.m., when three or four youths in a car drove past the school on 67th Street near Broadway and began yelling obscenities, Principal Louvonia S. Hall said.
Hall did not know what was yelled, or what sparked the outburst that, she said, included two or three shots.
All of the school’s 1,716 students were outside at the time, although only some of them were in the large playground area, which includes a baseball field and several basketball courts.
Hall said the shooting was the first at the school in her three years as principal.
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