Authorities Puzzled by Outbreak of Holiday Violence

The outburst of holiday violence continued in Los Angeles County on Friday, as the Thanksgiving period death toll from gang-related shootings, arson and random gunfire reached 14.

“I just keep seeing a lot more violence,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Joe Patterson, stationed in Norwalk. “It’s something that’s going on in our society. It just seems to be getting worse. The weekend’s not even begun yet. Here it is only Friday, and we’ve had this many victims already.”

A 17-year-old gang-tattooed youth died after being shot in the back of the head during an apparent drive-by shooting early Friday in Norwalk, sheriff’s officials said. The victim, Antonio Rivera, of Norwalk, was pronounced dead at a local hospital where he had been brought by friends who said they found him lying in the street, bleeding, near his car.

At 9:15 Friday night, Long Beach police reported a man fatally shot on Nevada Street. Officers said the shooting did not appear to be gang related. The man died at Long Beach Memorial Hospital shortly after.

In another killing, Edward Babb, 27, a construction worker, was walking north of downtown Los Angeles on his way to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving dinner when he was accosted by two men demanding money.

“He told them he didn’t have any, and he was shot” and killed, said Los Angeles Police Detective Sam Catalfamo, who quoted witnesses.

A 15-year-old Northridge youth was fatally shot at a party in Chatsworth, reportedly in a dispute over his beeper, Los Angeles Police said Friday. Marc Squires was shot while attending a party Wednesday night on Bryant Street, said Detective Michael Brandt. He died Thursday at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

Police said the gunman apparently wanted the youth’s beeper. “It seems kind of hard to believe that that’s something worth fighting over,” Brandt said. No arrests had been made but police were interviewing several witnesses.

Late Thursday, a man and woman were discovered shot to death in a Montrose apartment, apparently the victims of a murder-suicide that occurred more than two weeks earlier, authorities said. Deputies were sent to the apartment in the 2300 block of Mira Vista Avenue at the request of the woman’s father. The father called authorities after unsuccessfully trying to contact the daughter for 10 days, sheriff’s officials said.

Deputies found the couple, whose names were not released, on the bedroom floor of the apartment they shared, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said. A semiautomatic handgun and two discharged shell casings were found nearby.

Sheriff’s deputies were responsible for at least one casualty on the holiday victim list. Deputies saw Palema Tonga Matangi, 27, of Long Beach, crossing the street at Orcutt Avenue and 67th Way in north Long Beach, near where a 1989 robbery occurred. One unidentified deputy, thinking that Matangi fit a description of a robbery suspect, shot and wounded him when he did not keep his hands in his pockets as ordered.

Matangi, who was unarmed, was struck by bullets in the torso, the right arm and the right leg. He underwent surgery Friday at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and was in critical condition. No charges had been filed in either the shooting or the robbery.

In Hollywood, an emotionally distraught man blasted the back wall of his home with more than 70 shotgun rounds, prompting a neighborhood evacuation. He held deputies at bay for four hours, before surrendering without a struggle.

A young mother and her 7-month-old baby were killed in an apparent arson fire in the 7300 block of Petrol Street in Paramount early Thursday. The names of the victims were not released. Five other residents in the apartment were injured by flames and smoke that engulfed the apartment. Fire investigators found a three-gallon plastic gasoline can in the hallway.

“The gas can led investigators to believe the fire was intentionally set,” a sheriff’s spokesman said.

Early Friday, a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the front window of a house in Pasadena, igniting a fire that injured a man and forced a family, including several small children, to flee, authorities said.

The firebombing, which occurred shortly after midnight, may have been the result of a family argument, county fire officials said.

“Thanksgiving generally had been one of the quieter holidays in terms of crime,” said Los Angeles Police Lt. Ross Moen, watch commander in the department’s Pacific division, which saw its first Thanksgiving Day homicide in five years when Paul Yanez, 22, of Venice, was shot to death on Westminister Avenue late Thursday. No witnesses to the killing had been identified and no motive had been determined, Moen said.