Calm in Westwood Is Shattered by Brawling, Gunshots

The streets of Westwood rumbled with violence early Saturday as shots were fired in two separate incidents and scores scuffled in a brawl that police said was sparked by racial slurs.

Shoppers and theater-goers dove into stores for cover in the incident in Westwood Village. On nearby fraternity row, UCLA campus police were the apparent targets of a gunman firing from a rowdy crowd of hundreds whose party had just been broken up.

The Westwood violence came as separate shootings in Silver Lake, Koreatown, El Sereno, North Hollywood and Glendale left three people dead and nine injured, police said. Investigators said most of those incidents apparently involved gang members.

A dispute between rival gang members was blamed by merchants in Westwood Village for the shots fired about 12:10 a.m. Saturday at Westwood Boulevard and Kinross Avenue.

Jittery store operators said Saturday’s incident called to mind the January, 1988, shooting of 27-year-old Karen Toshima, who was killed as she strolled through the area after a dinner date.

This time, Los Angeles police had been called to break up a street fight when shots were fired.

“They were shouting a lot of verbal insults at each other and then someone fired a gun,” an employee of a nearby record store said. She said pedestrians ran into the store to take cover.

Investigators said it was unclear whether the shots were aimed at anyone.

“A shot or two rang out and everybody split,” Los Angeles Police Sgt. Kevin Wakefield said.

“I’m afraid to walk on Westwood Boulevard,” Michelle Schwein, co-manager of a boutique near the intersection, said Saturday. “It’s scary. There are so many people that it’s hard to predict what will happen.”

A few blocks away at UCLA’s fraternity row, shots were fired as eight campus police officers broke up a large party taking place in a fraternity house rented for the night to an outside group.

One man was wounded and four were arrested in connection with that shooting, campus police reported.

The party had apparently been organized by a group of University High School students who had rented the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house. When the party spilled into Gayley Avenue about 12:30 a.m., campus police got complaints that fighting had broken out.

Police broke up the party, and a group of about 400 left the house. The crowd grew to about 700 a few minutes later when party-goers reached the intersection of Gayley and Strathmore Drive, UCLA Police Chief John Barber said.

A fight then apparently broke out between the younger students and members of the Beta Theta Phi fraternity, Barber said. Two shots were fired in the direction of campus officers who moved in to break up the brawl.

The officers escaped injury, but the unidentified gunman apparently wounded himself, Barber said.

Although the high school students complained that the fight was triggered by racial taunts from Beta Theta Phi members, a spokesman for that group denied that accusation Saturday afternoon.

Elsewhere, drive-by shootings and attacks between rival gangs rang out:

* In the Silver Lake area, 18-year-old Marlin Martinez was fatally wounded about 12:30 a.m. when two men fired into a group near a catering truck at Virgil Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles Police Sgt. Alex Salazar said.

* In El Sereno, a 29-year-old unidentified man was gunned down about midnight in the 3500 lock of Pueblo Avenue, Los Angeles Police Detective Robert Suter said.

* In the Koreatown area, a man staggered into California Medical Center emergency room and died after he told doctors he had been shot at Venice Boulevard and Westmoreland Avenue shortly before 3:30 a.m., police said.

* In Glendale, a 19-year-old Sylmar man was in guarded condition at Huntington Memorial Hospital after being struck by two shotgun blasts fired from a moving vehicle, Glendale Police Lt. Ron DePompa said. Gerardo Lupercio was hit in the head by 40 pellets, he said.