3 Gunmen Open Fire in Restaurant; 1 Dead, 4 Hurt

Gunmen invaded a Jamaican restaurant in the Crenshaw shopping district Thursday afternoon and opened fire, killing one customer and wounding four others, Los Angeles police said.

Police said two or three men--armed with what witnesses said were at least two assault weapons--shouldered their way through the front door of the Universal Quality Restaurant, at 4028 S. Buckingham Road, shortly after 2 p.m. and yelled “Freeze!”

Without saying anything else, police said, the gunmen fired more than 20 shots.

Then the assailants ran from the restaurant, its glass front door shattered by gunfire. They climbed into a car, possibly a Ford Taurus or Mercury Sable, and sped away.

Capt. Noel Cunningham, commander of the Southwest Division, was asked at the scene whether the shooting could be linked to a territorial war among Jamaican drug gangs, called “posses.” He said that was a possibility, noting that “they are at war all across the city over territory.”

But other investigators later said they had no evidence that Jamaican gangs were involved.

“It’s probably premature to call it anything,” said Lt. Doug Collisson, who is in charge of the investigation. “It’s hard to say what the motive was. We’re ruling out robbery because there was no attempt to take cash from patrons.

“We’re not making any connection between gangs and narcotics. It’s just too early to speculate.”

Police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth noted that a Jamaican restaurant was involved, but he added, “We don’t know who the suspects are. We have not assumed a theory that the shooting was any kind of a turf war involving Jamaica posses.”

Authorities said Newton Wayde Dacosta, 30, of Los Angeles, was struck by several shots and was dead at the scene.

Two others, Paul McClean, 30, son of the restaurant owner, and Wilbert Brown, 40, were taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. McClean suffered a superficial wound to his head and Brown was wounded in the right leg, a hospital spokesman said.

The two other victims were taken to Westside Hospital. A spokeswoman said Sandra Skeen, 38, was treated for a superficial leg wound and released. A 42-year-old man, whose name was withheld, was taken to County-USC Medical Center with bullet wounds in his right hand and right knee.

Restaurant owner Joseph McClean, 50, said he did not know what the shooting was about.

“My son got shot,” he said. “I was standing behind the door (at the rear of the restaurant) and the shooting just started. I’ve never had a problem. . . . I have never seen these guys before.”

Dr. Karim Ansar, a physician who has offices above the restaurant, said that after the shooting stopped he treated the wounded until paramedics arrived. He speculated that “(it was) drug-related. . . . Somebody had a beef.”

Another man who was upstairs at the time estimated that the shooting lasted about 15 seconds.

“It went on and on and on,” said the man, who asked not to be identified. “It sounded like an automatic, or at least semiautomatic (weapon). When I heard it start, I just started shaking apart because I knew what it was.”

An incident in nearby Culver City earlier this week may have prompted speculation about whether Jamaicans were involved in Thursday’s shooting.

At least three patrons were wounded early Tuesday when a gun battle erupted during a party at the Cover Girl Lounge on Jefferson Boulevard. The club had been rented out by Jamaicans, the management said.

“The only thing we know is that there was some sort of an altercation,” Culver City Police Sgt. Dan Irvin said. “We know that there was more than one handgun and more than one gunman.”

Members of the area’s Jamaican community estimate that there are more than 50,000 Jamaicans in Southern California.

Law enforcement officials trace the posses to violent gangsterism that erupted in Jamaica during the 1970s, when the Caribbean nation’s economy hit bottom.

By 1980, posses had aligned themselves with Jamaica’s two major political parties, leading to running gun battles that left 600 people dead during that year’s election campaign.

Posse members subsequently began coming to the United States and setting up elaborate networks to sell marijuana, authorities said. As posse members switched from pot to the more lucrative cocaine and gun trade in the mid-1980s, the violence escalated.

A year ago, the FBI estimated that posses had been responsible for 1,400 homicides since 1985. At the same time, officials estimated that 10,000 posse members belonging to about 40 separate gangs are in the United States. Last year, police and federal agents rounded up more than 400 suspected Jamaican gang members in 20 states, including California.

Times staff writer John Kendall contributed to this story.