Youth Shot to Death While Driving Home

A Sun Valley teen-ager who was driving home early Sunday from his job at a movie theater was shot to death during a confrontation with four suspected gang members in a dark-colored pickup truck, authorities said.

Officers were sent to a disturbance in the 8000 block of De Garmo Avenue shortly after midnight and found Jorge Manriquez Figueroa, 17, seated in his car with a gunshot wound to the upper torso, Los Angeles Police Sgt. Christopher Vasquez said. Paramedics pronounced the teen-ager dead at the scene at 1 a.m.

Vasquez said Figueroa was driving north when the pickup truck drove alongside. After a brief conversation, one of the people in the truck produced a gun and shot Figueroa for no apparent reason, then fled in the pickup, Vasquez said.

Homicide Detective David Alfred said Figueroa was not known to be a gang member, but he said the shooting appeared to be the work of gang members. No suspects were in custody on Sunday.