Deadly Gang Violence Erupts in Hollywood

Police are searching for the reasons behind a flurry of violent clashes that have erupted between rival gangs in Hollywood, leaving at least five gang members dead in the last three weeks alone.

Police have few suspects and even fewer answers.

“All of a sudden, Hollywood has erupted on us,” said Detective Michael DePasquale of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Westside anti-gang unit, Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, or CRASH.

“It is not like there are two gangs at war with each other,” DePasquale said.

Armed clashes had been uncommon in Hollywood, he said.

What troubles CRASH and LAPD authorities is the number of gangs--at least four or five--that appear to be involved.

Police say they have suspects in only one of the slayings and they are trying to determine if there is a pattern to the violence.

Usually there are pay-backs after each gang slaying, and an already beefed-up CRASH unit is bracing for the inevitable. “I expect more,” DePasquale said.

In the most recent gang clash, one youth was killed, another paralyzed from the waist down and a third seriously injured during a drive-by shooting at 10:30 p.m. Sunday.

Francisco Reynosa, 14, of Northeast Los Angeles was walking down the 600 block of North Harvard Boulevard with friends when rival gang members drove by, yelled gang slogans and fired numerous shots at the three youths, said homicide Detective Russell Kuster of Hollywood Division. He said that Reynosa was pronounced dead at the scene and that the conditions of the other two youths have not changed.

Police have no suspects or motives in that case.

On Aug. 6, a 25-year-old suspected gang member was killed in an afternoon drive-by shooting at Melrose Avenue and Harvard Boulevard. Police said they have no arrests or suspects.

Two more gang members were killed in separate incidents on Aug. 3. In the first, two groups of rival gangs were walking down Fountain Avenue near Gower Street about 7 a.m. when one suspect shot two gang members, killing one at the scene and injuring the other. Police said they arrested a juvenile and an adult several hours later.

At 9:15 p.m., rival gang members began arguing at a gas station at Melrose and Wilton Place when one suspect shot two rivals, killing one and seriously wounding another. Police said they have suspects in that case but have made no arrests.

On July 20, two groups from rival gangs confronted each other about 5 p.m. at the corner of Oxford Avenue and Beverly Boulevard. Gang slogans were shouted, and one group started chasing members of the other on foot while firing at them. One suspected gang member struck by at least one bullet was pronounced dead at the scene.