Suspect in Slaying of Sheriff’s Helper Held : Crime: Three-month investigation leads to arrest of juvenile in fatal shooting of 19-year-old Anthony Jerome Gardner, a law enforcement Explorer Scout.

A 17-year-old boy was arrested Saturday in the drive-by shooting of a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Explorer Scout who was killed last September as he alerted people to the presence of gang members in a south Los Angeles neighborhood.

The early morning arrest at a run-down boarding house in Watts followed an intense three-month investigation into the shooting of 19-year-old Anthony Jerome Gardner, who worked as a volunteer at the sheriff’s station in Carson.

Sheriff’s Lt. Joe Hladky declined to identify the suspect because of the youth’s age. The juvenile was booked on suspicion of murder at the Firestone Sheriff’s Station and was being held without bail. Homicide investigators are still seeking another suspect in the case.

“It took a lot of hard work to crack this case,” Hladky said. “A lot of door pounding, a lot of talking to people in the streets, and a lot of tweaking of informants.”

Hladky also said the investigation was aided by more than $60,000 in reward money being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspects.

The arrest brought only a slight measure of relief to Brenda Gardner, the victim’s mother, a civilian employee of the Sheriff’s Department.

“I know it’s going to be a years-long process of going to court,” she said. “You know what I want? I want him to get the death penalty because that’s what my son got.”

“I helped raise that boy,” said a 69-year-old neighbor who asked that her name not be used. “It seems they (gang members) just don’t want the good people to live.”

Anthony Gardner, whom Hladky described as a “rising star,” graduated from University High School with a 3.7 grade point average and was planning to enter the Sheriff’s Academy in November. He was shot to death shortly after 1 p.m. on Sept. 18 in the 10200 block of South Haas Avenue near Inglewood, authorities said.

“He was talking to four other people in the street, advising them that a rival gang had been seen in the area,” Hladky said. “As he was talking to these people, several shots were fired from a passing car.”

Gardner was the only bystander hit. “He was struck in the back as he turned to go down on the ground,” Hladky said.

The killing unleashed a tide of sympathy from law enforcement organizations throughout the country. Even President Bush sent his condolences.

Based on information provided by informants and people who witnessed the shooting, about a dozen sheriff’s deputies and homicide investigators converged at dawn to serve search warrants at the Watts boarding house.

They surrounded the house and, after announcing their presence, forced their way through the front door with guns drawn and rousted about eight people--some of them elderly--out of bed. Among them was a youth who matched the description of the “trigger man” given to authorities by witnesses, Hladky said.

As the youth was being handcuffed and led away to a patrol car, his grandmother, Nancy Clark, 58, shouted to startled neighbors across the street: “It’s just my grandson! You know how kids are.”

Clark, who rents rooms in the boarding house for $160 a month to tenants that include her grandson, said she was unaware of the youth’s alleged gang activities.

“He may be a ‘gang banger,’ but if he is, he’s a quiet one,” Clark said. “He doesn’t talk to nobody here.”

In his cluttered bedroom, investigators found numerous high school textbooks covered inside and out with gang slogans and nicknames, authorities said. They also discovered a thick album filled with photographs of the suspect and other youths displaying gang signs with their hands. One of the photographs was of a youth defiantly making a gang sign with his right hand and clutching a fist-full of cash in the other.

Authorities said the suspect has an extensive criminal record. Most recently, he was arrested Aug. 12 in Inglewood in an armed robbery that involved “force and violence,” according to court documents.