Hawthorne Police on Alert After Shooting at Fair

Hawthorne police on Saturday were bracing for the possibility of continued gang violence throughout the weekend at a community fair, the site of a shoot-out that left a 9-year-old girl and two rival gang members injured.

The gun battle late Friday night at the Hawthorne Community Fair, which involved an on-duty Hawthorne police officer, apparently was the first gang shooting in 20 years at the popular community event, said Hawthorne Police Officer Terry Barnes.

The shootings prompted the department to brief officers in preparation for a Saturday parade and one more day and night of fair activity near Hawthorne Memorial Park--events that usually draw as many as 30,000 people, and with them, large numbers of gang members. The parade went on without incident, and by Saturday evening, police had reported no additional gang confrontations.

The fair, sponsored by the Kiwanis Club, continues until midnight tonight, and Barnes said police are concerned that gang members might use the site for retaliations.

“There will be extra precautions, absolutely,” Barnes said. “We’ll be down on the gangs a lot harder than usual. It’s certainly a matter of common sense--we had problems with them last night and we’re certainly not going to let them get out of hand.”

As they have done every year, police planned to eject from the fairgrounds visitors wearing gang clothing or otherwise showing gang affiliations. Because of the expected crowds, he said, police “pretty much have everybody working that they can already.”

The shoot-out occurred just before 11 p.m. Friday, south of the fair parking lot at the intersection of El Segundo Boulevard and Cordary Avenue, said Deputy Patrick Hunter of the county sheriff’s information bureau.

According to Hunter, one gang member, identified as Clyde Lofton, 18, of Gardena, shot a rival from Inglewood in the abdomen. A plainclothes Hawthorne police officer working security at the fair then confronted Lofton, exchanged gunfire with him, and chased him about 20 yards down El Segundo Boulevard before shooting him in the upper torso, said Hunter. He said the officer, whose name is not being released pending a routine investigation, was not injured.

Lofton was listed in critical condition Saturday at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Hunter said. He was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon.

The second gang member, as yet unidentified, ran to the fairgrounds after being shot and collapsed. He was listed in stable condition at Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center in Hawthorne, Hunter said.

The 9-year-old girl, who was attending the fair, “was apparently struck by a stray round fired by” Lofton, Hunter said. She was listed in stable condition at the Hawthorne medical center with a gunshot wound to the lower leg.

Meanwhile, one youth was killed and another critically wounded in unrelated gang shootings elsewhere in the county, police said.

A 16-year-old was killed shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday just west of downtown during a running gun battle between two carloads of gang members, police said.

The youth was one of five males in a vehicle traveling westbound on 7th Street near Witmer Street, when a carload of youths pulled alongside and fired five shots into the car, said Lt. Ben Gering of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division. The victim, shot in the upper torso, was pronounced dead at California Medical Center, he said.

At about the same time, another man was critically injured in a drive-by shooting in the 1500 block of W. 12th Place in the Pico-Union District, Gering said.

Rosendo Turcios, 22, was shot in the head as he sat with friends, and was being kept alive Saturday only by life-support systems and not expected to live, Gering said. A spokeswoman at County-USC Medical Center said Turcios was in “very grave” condition.

No arrests have been made in either case, and police are searching for three male Latino suspects in a tan Toyota car or truck in connection with Turcios’ shooting, Gering said.