Band of Robbers Kills 1 in Rampage; 7 Arrested : Crime: The knife-wielding assailants, some on bikes, surrounded the victims, attacked them and fled.

Four adults and three youths were booked on suspicion of murder Friday after a band of suspected gang members on mountain bicycles and on foot went on a 10-minute rampage on Century Boulevard in Watts, fatally stabbing a woman, seriously wounding her husband and robbing two other couples.

Authorities said that eight to 10 knife-wielding attackers swarmed around the couples shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday as they walked home in the dark of evening. The assailants confronted one couple carrying grocery bags, grabbing a purse from Tomasa Rivas, 44, and knocking her husband, Jesus, 52, to the ground. Then, as the mother of four children ran for her life, the attackers chased her down and stabbed her to death.

“The victims (were) intimidated by being surrounded,” said Lt. Larry Kallestad, a Los Angeles Police Department homicide investigator. “Any resistance was overcome by kicking and beating. Then they would go through pockets and take purses.”

Police said Friday evening that they were seeking an eighth man, 24-year-old Darwin Percy, who they suspect was the “chief attacker.” Officers raided three apartments in the Jordan Downs housing project Friday afternoon in search of Percy but came up empty-handed, a police spokesman said.

Officers familiar with gang tactics in the Watts area said that the crime rampage was unusual for the number of attackers--some highly mobile on bicycles--and the number of victims assaulted in such a brief time span.

“Normally, there’s just two or three of them (assailants),” said Detective Nolan Gilmore of the department’s Southeast Division robbery detail. “This many guys, going rat-packing . . . that’s uncommon. Why the whole gang went out, I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s a sign of what’s coming.”

Kallestad said that at least 50 other robberies have been reported within a few miles of the crime scene over the last two months.

Although police could not offer details on the other Thursday night attacks, police said the assault on the Rivases was the third of three beatings and robberies allegedly committed by the suspects over 10 minutes in a three-block area of Century Boulevard.

None of the other victims was believed seriously injured, although one man reportedly suffered a severe head cut. The amount of money taken in the three robberies has not been determined, police said.

Minutes after the attacks, officers in a police helicopter saw suspects fleeing into the Jordan Downs project. Police detained 15 suspects and said they found purses belonging to some of the victims. On Friday, seven suspects--three juveniles and four adults aged 16 to 24--were booked on suspicion of murder. Kallestad said robbery charges would be added at their arraignments.

Gloria Williams, 37, a Jordan Downs resident, said she was home preparing dinner when police officers stormed her apartment in search of suspects involved in the robbery rampage. Her four sons were among those arrested, she said, but they were later released.

“I didn’t see nothing,” she said. “There was a lot of bikes here but I don’t know whose they were.”

Because of the continuing investigation and the ages of the juvenile suspects, none of those arrested were identified by police.

A witness, who asked that her name not be used, said that she saw the Rivases carrying groceries home from a nearby supermarket about 6 p.m. when they were surrounded by the youths, riding mountain bikes and wearing black jackets and caps.

“It was a terrible thing to see,” the woman said, trembling and fighting tears.

“First I saw three guys on bicycles ride by and one of them had a woman’s shoulder bag slung over his shoulder,” she said. “Then I saw six or eight more guys dressed just like them across the street grabbing and shaking the man and the woman. The woman was trying to get away, but they had her good.

“Then she fell and they left. She was on her back in the street gasping for air. Her husband was trying to pull her back on the curb. His face was bleeding and he was screaming, ‘My wife! My wife!’ ”

The witness said that when she shouted for help, other spectators told her, “Hush up, woman!”

She said that one of the suspects shouted out the name of a street gang as the assailants rode away.

Officials said Tomasa Rivas died from a massive stab wound in the chest. Jesus Rivas was reported in stable condition Friday at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, where he underwent surgery for multiple stab wounds.

Sofia Rivas, 19, the couple’s oldest child, said Friday that before her parents left home at 5:15 p.m. to cash a payroll check and buy groceries, her mother talked excitedly about celebrating New Year’s Eve with a Mexican dinner.

The daughter said that when her parents failed to return home an hour later, their 18-year-old son, Victor, decided to go looking for them. Three blocks from home, he saw police investigators gathered around a body covered with a white sheet.

“I asked to look at the body,” he said. “They lifted the cover. I said, ‘That’s my mother,’ and started to cry.”

Sofia Rivas said her father was unemployed and that her mother, who worked at a nearby factory producing coffee pots, supported the family on a weekly paycheck of $450.

“I don’t know what we are going to do without her,” she said. “She was supporting the family.”