Rap Fan Shot During Melee in Anaheim

A concert-goer was shot and wounded Thursday night as unruly patrons clashed inside and in front of the Celebrity Theater.

Outside the theater, patrons waiting in line scattered for cover as the gunshot rang out about 8:30 p.m. Meanwhile, a fight inside the theater halted the performance of Oakland rap group Too Short just minutes after it began. Too Short was one of several groups performing at a show headlined by Los Angeles-based rapper Ice Cube.

“People were jumping up on the stage and fighting,” said Kelly Tolliver, 19, of Los Angeles. “It was just wild.”

The shooting outside the theater occurred near the front door, where a man, tentatively identified by authorities as Willie Banks, was apparently wounded in the abdomen. Banks was taken to Long Beach Memorial Hospital, where he arrived about 9:30 p.m. and was sent to surgery. Emergency room workers described his condition as stable.

Although police would not speculate on the cause of the violence, several witnesses said rival gang members were clashing before and during the performance of Too Short. Chairs were thrown and members of the audience poured onto the stage.

It was not known whether the violence inside the theater was connected to the gunfire outside.

“I was standing in line when I heard a gun go off. I saw a guy shot in the leg, and everybody scattered,” said Jason Scott, 17, of La Palma. “Everybody ran. Police were pushing us out the front of the door. It was confusing and hectic.”

Police arrested at least three people at the scene for refusing to disperse and disobeying officers. A suspect was also detained in connection with the shooting, though police would not say whether that suspect was being charged.

After the disturbance was quelled, Yolanda Whitaker, a singer from Los Angeles who performs under the name Yo-Yo, criticized concert security.

“The problem was not gangs or rappers,” she said. “It was just too many people getting restless. That’s what happens when you don’t organize right.”

James Ice, head of security for Ice Cube, agreed. “We’ve been on the road since Thanksgiving. We had gone through all kinds of security, but we’ve never seen anything as poorly organized as this.”

Times staff writers Jerry Hicks, Kevin Johnson, Alexander Gallardo and Mike Boehm contributed to this report.

BACKGROUND

Ice Cube, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson, has been one of the most controversial performers in rap. Most of the 21-year-old rapper’s songs attempt to portray, in gritty, usually obscene language, the bitter, angry lot of inner-city black youth of South Central Los Angeles. In one rap from his hit album, “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted,” Ice Cube describes black youth as an “endangered species,” jeopardized by racist neglect. Since he emerged in 1989 with the group N.W.A., Ice Cube has been both praised as a realist and criticized as an exploitative sensationalist, for the graphic portrayals of street violence in his lyrics.