1 Killed, 7 Injured in Gang Shootings in Hollywood : Crime: At least 10 people have died this year in violent confrontations in the city’s faded movie capital. Police say more gangs are ‘sprouting up, and that’s a problem.’

Street violence in Hollywood, a growing menace as gang activity escalates in the faded movie capital, claimed another victim Saturday and left seven others injured.

Six people were struck by bullets--including one fatally--fired by gang members in a passing car into a crowd outside an apartment building, and two teen-agers were shot after a street fight on Hollywood Boulevard, police said. Three people also were killed in unrelated incidents in other Los Angeles County localities.

The Hollywood attacks were the latest in a rash of deadly gang confrontations in Hollywood that have left at least 10 people dead this year, seven of them in the last two months. In 1989, there were only three gang-related slayings, police said.

“Just the mere fact that this is Hollywood attracts all types of people,” said Sgt. Paul Anderson of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Division. “I wish the gangs weren’t one of them, but they are. More gangs are just sprouting up, and that’s a problem.”

Gangs, particularly Latino ones, have been a fact of life in Hollywood since an influx of Mexican immigrants began in the early 1920s, Anderson said. But a recent and significant influx of gangs of all types and affiliations, and their affinity for automatic weapons, has signaled a much more disturbing and deadly trend, say Anderson and other authorities.

“They used to have street fights,” Anderson said. “Now they get right down to the nitty-gritty and just start shooting each other. And it usually starts over territory, with someone saying, ‘I don’t like you.’ ”

In the drive-by shooting Saturday, one youth was killed and five other people seriously wounded just before 3 a.m. as they were milling around outside an apartment building in the 5800 block of Gregory Avenue, police said. The name of the 18-year-old male victim was being withheld pending notification of relatives. Another victim was listed in critical condition and four others with gunshot wounds were in serious condition at various area hospitals, Anderson said.

The victims and the suspects are believed to be gang members, but police said they did not know what prompted the deadly incident. There were no arrests.

The street fight occurred at about 11 p.m. Friday, when two groups of youths piled out of their cars near the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Wilton Place. A scuffle began and the suspects were joined in the fight by some onlookers on the street. One carload of youths got back into their car and were driving off when two passengers were hit by gunfire.

A teen-age boy was listed in extremely critical condition at Queen of Angels-Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center for a gunshot wound to the head, Anderson said. A 15-year-old girl was treated for a gunshot wound to the shoulder at a Glendale hospital and released.

In response to the burgeoning gang problem in Hollywood, the Los Angeles Police Department launched an Operation Hammer anti-gang initiative in early September. On one weekend night, 75 people were arrested, including 46 known gang members, on charges ranging from drug possession and parole violations to car theft and robbery. Unlike similar police actions that have netted hundreds of gang members, authorities said they suspected the Hollywood gangs had been alerted beforehand to stay off the streets.

Police attribute the surge in gang activity in part to crackdowns in other parts of the city just east of Hollywood, which have forced some gangs to find other turf.

For years, several blocks of Hollywood Boulevard have been closed to vehicle traffic on weekend nights to prevent gang members from cruising and causing trouble. But gang members from elsewhere continue to flock to the area, attracted by the carnival-like atmosphere on the popular thoroughfare, which stays lit up and crowded throughout the night.

Three weeks ago, one man was robbed and fatally shot in Hollywood and another critically injured by a group of gang members from South-Central Los Angeles, whom police said had committed “half a dozen other robberies on this particular crime spree” before being arrested.

Also killed in gang-related violence this weekend was Julio Guzman, 19, of Ontario. Guzman was shot and killed at 1:30 a.m. Saturday outside a party in the unincorporated San Gabriel Valley community of Valinda, according to Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert Olmsted. James Rios, 20, of Bassett, also was shot and injured when members of two gangs began fighting and others attending the party joined the fray.

And a man was found shot to death in a stolen Jaguar automobile in the Westlake district west of downtown.