Boy, 14, Among Seven Victims of Deadly Violence

In the Los Angeles metropolitan area where violence and ugly freeway confrontations have become almost as pervasive as the smog, law enforcement officers took this past weekend’s seven homicides in stride.

From midnight Friday through 3 p.m. Sunday, the Los Angeles Police Department investigated two homicides and about 28 shootings, said Officer Gilbert Escontrias. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies investigated four homicides during the same period.

“It was a typical Saturday from what I can see,” Escontrias said Sunday. “It’s nothing major or anything unusual” in terms of statistics, he said.

Among the homicides was the drive-by fatal shooting early Sunday morning, apparently gang-related, in South-Central Los Angeles of a 14-year-old boy. The youth, whose name was withheld, was shot just before 1 a.m. from a passing car on East 40th Place, and died at the scene.

About an hour later, a 21-year-old Maywood man, whose name was withheld pending notification of his relatives, died of two gunshot wounds to his chest after a traffic accident on a Maywood street. His passenger, an 18-year-old Maywood resident, also was shot and was taken to County-USC Medical Center where he was listed in stable condition.

The survivor, whose name was not released, told deputies that, after the accident, three men in the other car assured the two that if they followed them to Bell, they would be reimbursed for the damage.

When they got to Bell, however, the survivor said an occupant of the car they were following got out and opened fire with a shotgun. “They were lured to the location, but we don’t know whether the suspects planned to shoot them beforehand or to rob them,” Deputy Dean Scoville said.

Three other homicides, all stabbings, investigated by the Sheriff’s Department Sunday included the killing of a 25-year-old man in a Lynwood bar; the stabbing of a 21-year-old man in the Athens area, allegedly by his roommate, and the knifing of a 22-year-old man, who was found in the middle of Lakewood street. No one has been arrested, deputies said.

Other victims included an unidentified man who was shot and killed outside a house party in Canoga Park and a woman whose body was found in an alley in Compton.