Teen Killed in Shooting on Freeway

A 16-year-old boy was shot and killed early Monday on a freeway near East Los Angeles while riding in a car with five friends, authorities said.

Alex Rivera of Bell was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car, which was traveling north on the Long Beach Freeway near Bandini Boulevard and Slauson Avenue, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Rafael Estrada said.

Two bullets were fired from another car carrying two men. One of the bullets struck Rivera in the head, fatally wounding him, Estrada said.

“Drive-by shootings can happen anywhere,” Estrada said. “We don’t know whether this was actually gang-related or not. There’s not enough information at this time.”

Investigators said Rivera did not belong to a gang, but they believe that some of the five people in the car with him were gang members.

The incident was triggered by an incident a few minutes earlier at the freeway on-ramp near Atlantic Boulevard and Florence Avenue, Estrada said. As Rivera and the other occupants were halted at a stop sign, another car pulled up and the occupants shouted something in Spanish at them.

“There was some sort of exchange, but we don’t know what,” Estrada said.

The occupants of the car Rivera was in did not understand what had been said, but drove away and entered the freeway, deputies said. The other car--described as a late-model, burgundy-colored Chevrolet Camaro or Firebird--passed them and shots were fired, Estrada said.