1 Killed, 7 Wounded Despite Anti-Gang Sweeps by Police

A man was slain early Saturday in Pacoima and seven people were wounded--including a 12-year-old boy--in gang-related shootings this weekend, despite a massive street sweep of gang members by Los Angeles police officers.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s anti-gang task force, dubbed Operation Hammer, arrested 472 people in all--288 of them reputed gang members--in a crackdown that began Friday evening and continued into the early morning hours Saturday, police said.

Hundreds of officers from police divisions in East Los Angeles, the Mid-City area, the San Fernando Valley and other stations participated in the latest in a series of periodic sweeps aimed at controlling street violence.

But despite those efforts, gang-related warfare still flared over the weekend.

Police reported that one apparent gang member was shot and killed Saturday about 2:45 a.m. as he stood on a Pacoima sidewalk, less than an hour after the task force had ceased operations for the day. The victim was reportedly hit in the head by a bullet from a passing car and was pronounced dead at the scene. No arrests had been made, Lt. Maurice Rubio of Foothill Division said.

At least six people were also wounded in gang-related shootings, including a 12-year-old boy who was shot in the back in the South-Central Los Angeles area. He was left paralyzed from the waist down, police said.

The youth was walking in the 1200 block of East 41st Street just before midnight Friday when he was shot by several gunmen in a passing car. “They yelled out their gang affiliation and fired several rounds at the youth walking down the street,” said Lt. Ron Code of the Newton Division who added that the victim is in critical condition and that no arrests had been made.

A few hours later, in Hollywood, two officers on patrol witnessed another drive-by shooting as three gunmen armed with shotguns opened fire on a rival gang member in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant, police said.

The officers chased the speeding car on the Hollywood Freeway, and after stopping it, they arrested four juveniles, said Sgt. C. E. Tave of Hollywood Division. The unidentified victim was hit in the arm, buttocks and foot by shotgun pellets but refused medical treatment, Tave said.

In other weekend incidents:

* An unidentified woman was wounded in the chest late Friday in Koreatown in a drive-by shooting that police are investigating as gang related.

* A 22-year-old gang member was hit by gunfire from a passing car early Saturday in the Mid-City area, Wilshire Division police said.

* And outside the city of Los Angeles, 18-year-old Mario Escalante of Bell--a reported gang member--was wounded in the hip when he emerged from a bowling alley in Huntington Park and four shots were fired from a car, Sgt. Mike Leinen said.

No arrests have been made in any of the incidents.

During their weekend sweep, however, task force officers did arrest five gang members, including four juveniles, as suspects in the Friday shooting of two teen-agers in North Hollywood. The victims, who apparently had no gang ties, were gunned down on a street by a pickup truck full of gang members, police said. Both survived the shootings and have been hospitalized.

Operation Hammer, which began in January, 1988, targets gang members for arrest for minor violations or felonies. Police said 106 gang members arrested Friday and Saturday were booked for felonies. The majority of those arrested were booked for various misdemeanors, including drunk driving, narcotics possession and warrants for failure to appear in court.

Police also reported seizing 11 guns from gang members during the operation.

In another drive-by shooting Saturday afternoon, police said an unidentified Latino man in his mid-20s died after he was gunned down in the Union Avenue section of Los Angeles. But Sgt. John Wickham of Rampart Division said the death did not appear to be gang related. “We think it may have been some other kind of criminal activity involved,” he said, “but not gang related.”