Police Shot At 2nd Time From Harbor Project : Gangs: More officers are called in to the area. Both attacks are seen as retaliation for a gang member’s death.

For the second time in a week, gang members at a Wilmington housing project have shot at Los Angeles police in apparent retaliation for the recent death of a gang member, police said.

Responding to the Thursday shooting, Harbor Division Cmdr. Joe DeLadurantey said as many as two dozen officers from other LAPD divisions have been assigned to the harbor area to put more officers in gang neighborhoods. The first of those officers arrived Thursday.

DeLadurantey, who earlier this week had turned down an offer of additional officers, said the shooting at a patrol car at Dana Strand Village convinced him that the way to confront the gangs’ recent bravado is with more police patrols.

“After what happened this morning, there is no doubt we need additional presence,” DeLadurantey said.

“It would be easy for me to call in an army. I’m not going to do that,” DeLadurantey added. “But I do think we need additional officers . . . and we need the community to get involved. Enough is enough.”

No officer was injured in the shooting Thursday, which happened at 2:30 a.m. as several patrol cars answered a call about a disturbance at the project. One teen-ager was arrested on suspicion of assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon. In the first armed assault on police last Sunday, one officer was grazed by a bullet.

The Thursday shooting heightened fears among community activists that a handful of gang members at Dana Strand remain bent on revenge for the death Saturday morning of John Santos. An autopsy found that the 21-year-old gang member choked to death on a tiny plastic bag containing what police believe were narcotics.

Although the contents of the bag have not yet been analyzed by the coroner’s office, the autopsy Wednesday confirmed initial police reports that Santos choked to death.

The finding contradicts gang rumors that he died at the hands of officers. Police and community activists said Thursday that the coroner’s report is meaningless to a few raging gang members.

“They’ve got a couple of hotheads out there who still want to make a name for themselves,” said Dee Wiggington, president of Mothers Against Gangs Support Services, a local group attempting all week to ease tensions at Dana Strand.

Detective Kim Wierman said Thursday’s shooting occurred after police were called to Dana Strand by a resident who complained of a disturbance in the central parking lot of the 384-unit housing project, just east of the Harbor Freeway.

Mindful of rumors that gang members might try to ambush police at the projects, the officers entered Dana Strand only after a police dispatcher confirmed that the call was legitimate. Even then, Wierman said, the first officers arriving at Dana Strand waited for two additional patrol cars before driving into the project.

As they entered the central lot, Wierman said, the officers found about a dozen gang members standing around, one of them motioning defiantly for police to approach.

“Normally they run when they see officers drive up, but this time they just waved the officers on,” Wierman said.

Moments later, he said, one of the youths pulled out a handgun and began shooting, hitting one of the patrol cars.

The officers, who did not return the gunfire, chased the gang members as they fled from the projects, arresting the 17-year-old several blocks away, Wierman said. The teen-ager, not identified because of his age, was still in custody late Thursday.

By late Thursday, Wierman said, it was unclear if the suspect is the one responsible for this shooting or one early Sunday, in which a bullet grazed one of two officers driving past Dana Strand.

The arrival of additional officers from LAPD’s gang detail and several other divisions was seen by police and community activists as regrettable but unavoidable.

“I hate to see this happen. But it’s gotten to the point where there is no choice but to bring in more police,” said Wiggington of Mothers Against Gangs.

The additional officers from the 77th, Southwest and Southeast divisions will be assigned to routine police calls while Harbor Division police, more familiar with local gangs, handle beefed-up patrols around housing projects and other gang problem areas, said DeLadurantey.

The increased deployment, he said, is likely to continue for the next month.

“I think it will take at least that long to show some results, because to be effective you almost have to treat gang activity like a brush fire that moves from place to place,” he said.

That movement is precisely what Wilmington activists had feared.

“This is horrible. Things are totally out of hand,” longtime activist Eleanor Montano said after learning of the latest shooting at Dana Strand. “I thought things might finally quiet down,” she said, because the fighting between Wilmington gangs had subsided.

“Now they’re going after the police,” Montano said.