Boy, 15, Arrested in Van Nuys Killing

Police arrested a 15-year-old boy on charges of killing a Van Nuys man who was mistaken for a member of a rival gang.

The boy, who was not identified because of his age, is also under suspicion in another shooting on the same night last summer, in which two people were wounded, police said Friday.

Detectives investigating the two Aug. 9 shooting incidents found the youth Thursday living in a county probation placement facility in Van Nuys, Los Angeles Police Detective James Vojtecky said.

The boy, a member of a Van Nuys-area gang, was scheduled to be arraigned Monday in juvenile court on charges of murdering Pedro Delatorre Munoz, 20, a busboy at Millie’s Country Kitchen in Van Nuys. Vojtecky declined to reveal why the suspect was being held in the probation facility but said the boy had been in trouble in the past and was a ward of the court.

Detective Paul Stewart said the boy, then 14, allegedly used a shotgun and a pistol in the two attacks at a Vanowen Street apartment complex near Hazeltine Avenue. None of the victims was a gang member.

The youth, along with several other armed gang members, allegedly first approached three men sitting in a stairwell and asked them where they were from, a question often asked by gang members looking for those affiliated with other gangs. When they answered, “Nowhere,” he fired a shotgun, wounding two, police said.

Three hours later, the boy and his companions walked up to Munoz, 20, who was returning to his nearby apartment from a store with a piece of fruit. When Munoz failed to respond to the same question, the youth shot him with a pistol, police said.

“It’s was a cowardly murder,” Vojtecky said. “What else do you call it when several armed gang members attack an innocent person armed with nothing more than a piece of fruit and then shoot him in the back when he tries to run away?”

Investigators believe the youth was “out looking for rivals to shoot,” Stewart said.

At the time of his death, some relatives of Munoz speculated that the murder may have occurred in retaliation for the busboy’s refusal to marry the mother of his child.