Shot Fired at Guard Kills Boy at School : Violence: The 11-year-old was struck as he left a Compton campus. Police say youths had targeted a security officer because of an earlier incident.

A gunshot intended for a security guard claimed the life of an 11-year-old boy Tuesday as he left a crowded Compton schoolyard, authorities said.

Sheriff’s deputies said Alejandro Vargas was shot outside Ralph J. Bunche Middle School after classes had ended for the day by a teen-ager who apparently was trying to shoot a security guard who had chased him and some friends from the campus moments earlier.

“The young man who was killed appears to have been walking away from school and innocently stepped into the line of fire,” Deputy Rafael Estrada said.

Authorities said that just before the 3:30 p.m. shooting, security guards chased four older youths from the campus in the 12300 block of South Mona Boulevard.

One of the youths stopped across the street from the school, “assumed a combat stance and just fired” a shot from a handgun that struck Vargas in the head, Estrada said.

Authorities said the four youths, described as between 15 and 17, were believed to have been among a group of 10 teen-agers who came on the campus without permission Friday and were forced to leave.

“We believe that a few . . . came back, and that the one decided to try to shoot a guard in retaliation for being kicked off the schoolyard last week,” Estrada said.

The shooting occurred on the day that the Wall Street Journal, in a front-page article on how some communities are coping with gang violence, singled out the Compton Unified School District for what the newspaper said were successful efforts to make its schools safe for students. The city of 86,000 has had its share of gang violence.

A group of Latino parents had scheduled a news conference Tuesday afternoon to demand better protection for their children and more aggressive efforts by the school district to keep gangs away from the schools.

“It’s just a shame,” school trustee Kelvin D. Filer said of the shooting. “It’s an epidemic that’s just plaguing every place and the last thing you want is to have it happen on the schoolyards. I just hate to hear this.”

Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Maynard said the boys involved in the killing were gang members, but that Vargas had no gang affiliation.

“He wasn’t part of the problem. He was just an innocent victim,” Maynard said. “He got hit by a stray bullet.”

Later, about half a mile south of the school, one man was killed and two others were wounded in a drive-by shooting in the 2000 block of Oris Street, Maynard said. The sergeant said the 6 p.m. shooting appeared to be gang-related and homicide investigators were attempting to determine if there was any connection with the schoolyard slaying.

Times staff writer Nieson Himmel contributed to this story.