Police Investigating Killings Raid Homes, Seize Weapons

Spurred by what one homicide detective called a “little gang war” in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, police searched the homes of 11 suspected gang members Wednesday, seizing weapons and other potential evidence in an ongoing investigation of five killings.

Detectives detained and questioned 14 people after the searches in Mission Hills, Sylmar and San Fernando, but made no arrests, Los Angeles police Detective Al Ferrand said. The search teams seized seven rifles, seven handguns and other undisclosed property, he said.

“It will take quite a while for us to evaluate everything,” Ferrand said.

Ferrand said 76 officers from homicide, gang and patrol units with the Los Angeles and San Fernando police departments took part in the simultaneous search warrant raids at 7 a.m.

He said the searches occurred at the homes of people believed to be members of a single local gang. Ferrand said the gang, which he declined to name, is suspected of being involved in as many as five slayings this year.

“Apparently, there is a little gang war going on,” said Ferrand, supervisor of homicide investigations in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division, which includes most of the northeast Valley.

“We have had quite an increase in gang-related murders. We have retribution-type cases. We have gang members shooting people for no reason.”

Police released few details about the five slayings or Wednesday’s operation, saying the details would jeopardize the continuing investigation.

However, Ferrand said, not all of the slaying victims were gang members.

He said at least one, Clinton Shane Peterson, 21, of Sun Valley, was an innocent victim. Peterson, the vice president of a mini-truck club that shunned gang members, was fatally shot Feb. 20 while standing with other club members at Brand Park in Mission Hills.

Peterson and other club members were gathered in the park for their weekly meeting when shots were fired from a passing car, striking Peterson. No one else was injured.

Ferrand said the victim was not a gang member, making the motive for the killing unclear. But evidence in the case, including the drive-by method used in the shooting, has led investigators to conclude it was gang-related.

Ferrand declined to say what led investigators in the Peterson case to focus specifically on the gang whose members’ homes were searched Wednesday.