4 Slain, 4 Hurt in Gang-Linked Shootings; Teen-Ager Arrested

Four people were killed and four others were injured in gang-related shootings in the Los Angeles area Wednesday night, authorities said.

Four teen-agers stopped their car in Hollywood to use a pay phone, a random act that cost three of them their lives and left another critically wounded, police said Thursday.

At midafternoon Thursday, a 16-year-old youth was arrested on suspicion of murder in the Hollywood slayings.

“This was an assassination,” said Los Angeles Police Lt. Brad Merritt, commander of the West Bureau’s anti-gang unit. “It was the most violent gang-related homicide in the last 10 years (in terms of the number killed in the bureau’s patrol area).”

Police will ask for prosecution of the teen-ager--a gang member since age 12--as an adult, Merritt said.

Merritt said the incident began shortly after 9 p.m., when two people approached the four victims at a service station at Hollywood Boulevard and Bronson Avenue and shouted a gang-name challenge.

When the teen-agers--all from Los Angeles--responded with the name of a rival gang, one of the assailants opened fire, hitting Roberto Orozco, 17, who was sitting in the open bed of a Chevrolet El Camino pickup truck. Then, the gunman ran up to the cab of the El Camino, where the others had sought cover, and shot each of them in the head.

Merritt said the assailants ran away.

Paramedics pronounced Orozco and Carlos Flores, 15, dead at the scene. Martha Navarrette, 17, died at Queen of Angels-Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.

The fourth victim, Alexander McLellan, 16, was in critical condition at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

In an unrelated incident, four men were standing in front of a house at 87th Street and Hooper Avenue when a gunman fired several shots at them, killing one man and wounding the other three, sheriff’s deputies said.

Steven McDowell, 23, of Los Angeles died of a bullet wound in his back at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, deputies said. Robert Denson, 26, was in stable condition, and Michael Abrams, 31, and Vincent Staton, 25, were in good condition at the hospital.

Investigators said the shooting appeared to be gang-related. No one was in custody.