Lethal Rain of Holiday Bullets Seen : Revelry: Random shots fired into the air by New Year’s Eve celebrants pose a major threat and authorities are planning to crack down on it.

A hard and deadly rain is heading for Los Angeles and it is due to arrive about midnight Sunday.

Instead of drops of moisture, thousands of bullets are expected to be fired randomly into the sky by New Year’s Eve revelers and hurtle back to earth with enough force to cause power outages, penetrate cars and buildings and put residents at risk throughout the city. If past form holds, the shooting will last roughly 30 minutes, starting at about 11:45 p.m. Sunday.

Flanked by a South Los Angeles woman whose son was killed by indiscriminate gunfire marking the New Year, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates on Tuesday urged citizens to watch for such gunplay and report it to police. Gates added that patrols will be out in force for the period he described as “the most dangerous time of the year in our neighborhoods.”

“It is a felony to shoot weapons into the air, so don’t do it,” Gates warned. “Otherwise, you will be arrested, and you may go to prison. Certainly, you will never own a gun again for the rest of your life.”

Statistics show the scope of the problem. Gates said police responded to 80 shots-fired calls throughout the city on Dec. 30, 1988. On New Year’s Eve 1988 and the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, “we responded to more than 1,200 such calls.”

The problem of holiday gunfire is already under way. On Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, five men were arrested in separate instances for firing an assortment of weapons into the air, Gates said. No one was reported hurt in the shootings.

Three of the men have been charged under a 1988 state law permitting felony prosecution for firing a gun into the air to celebrate holidays, Gates said. The law carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison.

Prison sentences, though, can hardly ease the pain of those who have lost loved ones to the barrage of random gunfire.

In the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 1986, Barbara Morgan’s 13-year-old son, Dean Morgan, was struck in the head as he stood outside his South Los Angeles home by a bullet fired “by someone who just happened to think he was having a good time,” Gates said. The boy died three days later.

“The sad part of this is that with so many people shooting, we were not able to apprehend the person who committed the crime,” Gates said.

Morgan made a tearful plea for an end to the indiscriminate shooting violence that claimed the life of her son.

“It’s hard for people to understand how dangerous it is,” she said. “You have to lose someone to learn the hurt that will never go away.”

As they have done in years past, the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department are distributing posters in English and Spanish designed to alert residents to the problem and urge that they report shooters to law enforcement authorities.

A flyer distributed by the Police Department includes the following advice: “If you see a person shoot a gun on New Year’s Eve, report it! Call 911 and give the operator as much information as possible about the shooting. You may save someone’s life.”

In the event of arrests, Los Angeles County deputy district attorneys will be on hand during booking procedures to evaluate each case and determine whether felony charges should be filed, said Mike Botula, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office.

“The reason for that is we want to file the more serious charges in those instances where it is warranted,” Botula said. “This is a serious crime, and we want to see the maximum punishment for it.”

Sheriff Sherman Block on Tuesday expressed concerns about the increased potential for violent confrontations between law enforcement officers and “these holiday revelers.”

Block added that as midnight approaches on New Year’s Eve, “we ground our helicopters and notify our radio cars to take positions under freeway overpasses.”

“Some people think we are pulling back, but we’re not,” he said. “We are taking positions of safety. It’s a hell of a note, isn’t it?”

Authorities are hard put to agree on a reason for the random gunfire that plagues the city during the holiday season.

But Dr. Marvin Southard, vice president of El Centro Community Health Services in East Los Angeles, suggested it may stem from a sense of bravado fueled by holiday revelry and alcohol.

“What would Freud say?” mused Southard. “I think it just has to do with the loosening of inhibitions and doing crazy things under the influence of alcohol.”