3 More Shot by Harbor Area Gangs

Three Harbor area teen-agers were injured early Saturday in drive-by shootings as continuing gang violence led Los Angeles police to temporarily assign several squads of Metropolitan Division officers to the community.

The arrival Friday of the Metro officers followed two recent shootings on police patroling Dana Strand Village, a Wilmington housing project. Earlier, LAPD officials disclosed that the Harbor Division’s staffing would be increased with some two dozen officers and gang specialists from three other divisions.

“We wanted to avoid the appearance of an occupation of the Harbor because we have worked hard with the community and don’t want to move in like storm troopers,” said Harbor Division Lt. Kathleen Murcott.

“But we have a gang problem that is simply unmanageable with our own resources, and we need some help,” she said.

The gang problem includes a string of 33 drive-by shootings in the Harbor area since mid-May in which three people have been killed.

More recently, the death of a Wilmington gang member at Dana Strand Village prompted two incidents in which shots were fired at officers patrolling the 384-unit housing project. In the first incident, last weekend, one officer was grazed by a bullet. The second, early Thursday, led to the arrest of a 17-year-old gang member.

Early Saturday, it appeared that two officers were again shot at in the project when they answered a disturbance call at 1 a.m. Police said later, however, that the officers only heard gunfire near Dana Strand and were not the targets.

But three area teen-agers were shot in two separate gang-related incidents Saturday. Police said Moris Soto, 14, of Wilmington, was critically wounded by gunfire at 3:15 a.m. as he stood talking with friends in the 200 block of Opp Street. One hour earlier, Francisco Gomez and Rodolfo Ruelas, both 17, were shot on 206th Street near Harvard Boulevard in the Harbor Gateway. Ruelas was hospitalized in stable condition with a bullet wound to his side; Gomez suffered a gunshot to his hand.

No arrests were made in either shooting.

Meanwhile, friends and family of Patricia Florencio, 27, of Wilmington, held a carwash Saturday to help pay for her funeral. Florencio was killed July 7 in a shooting that police have blamed on her boyfriend, a gang member.