Last Act of Youth Who Was Fleeing Killers May Have Saved Woman’s Life

It was a simple, final act for a teen-age boy who was about to die, but it may have saved another life Tuesday morning on the streets of Southwest Los Angeles.

The frantic 16-year-old rammed the car he was driving into the left front fender of a woman driving to work in her brand-new car. But instead of getting out to exchange license information--and much to the woman’s consternation--he motioned for her to stay in her car.

A moment later, a pair of gunmen who had been chasing the youth west on 58th Place in another car pulled up alongside. The passenger leaned out the window and pumped five bullets into the youth’s car, one of which struck him in the right temple.

The victim, a student at Manual Arts High School, was rushed to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, where he died several hours after the 8 a.m. shooting. His name was withheld until relatives could be notified.

Police believe the shooting was gang-related.

The 18-year-old Los Angeles woman whose car was struck as she drove south on Budlong Avenue said the youth’s insistence on her staying in her car kept her out of the line of fire.

“He was saying, ‘Get back in the car.’ I was trying to get my pad and paper out,” said the woman, who withheld her name because she feared reprisal by the killers. “I’m so glad I didn’t get out of the car.”

Witnesses said the victim was driving a small, brown sedan too fast on 58th Place to make the right turn at Budlong Avenue. He disregarded the stop sign and crashed into the woman’s powder-blue Honda, which she said she bought Sunday.

The youth told the woman to stay in the car as he was backing up. Then the two men pulled their car alongside his and one of them fired a small-caliber handgun. The victim’s car then lurched into the Honda again, Richardson said.

The gunmen sped off south on 58th Place in a silver or gray car. The woman said she rushed over to the wounded youth, who was unconscious, but there was little she could do except to call paramedics and police from a nearby house.