Girl Shot in Heart by Gang Carries Brother to Safety : Violence: The 11-year-old had stepped out of her home to buy ice cream when she was hit by errant bullet.

Eleven-year-old Cristal Anguio had been warned repeatedly to be careful when outside her family’s modest home in South-Central Los Angeles. Her neighborhood’s streets could be dangerous for a youngster.

But on Sunday afternoon, the allure of a passing ice cream truck was too much for Cristal. Clutching her brother, 2-year-old Rafael, in her arms, she ran outside to buy ice cream. The fifth-grader at South Park Elementary School only got a few steps from the doorway of her wood-frame home before she was struck in the upper chest by an errant bullet, fired in the midst of a gun battle between rival gangs.

Rafael was unharmed. Cristal, whose heart had been pierced by the bullet, managed to carry her brother to safety, then collapsed in the doorway of the house, telling her horrified parents, “I don’t feel good.”

The youngster was near death when she was taken to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. Physicians operated several times to save the girl’s life, extracting the bullet from her heart, officials said.

On Tuesday, Cristal was in critical but stable condition and relatives and neighbors praised her selflessness in carrying her brother to safety.

“That was the first thing she did, bringing Rafael to the front door,” Cristal’s aunt, Hermenina Anguio, said Tuesday. “We didn’t know she was hurt until she said something.”

Authorities said the youngster was yet another innocent victim of the ever-present war between rival gangs in that part of South-Central Los Angeles. It is a neighborhood where children are forced to grow up too fast and parents think constantly about escaping the violence for the safety of their children.

Lt. Bruce Hagerty of the Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Street Division, described the low-income area near Manchester Boulevard and San Pedro Street as a place with a longstanding problem with street gangs and drugs.

“She was just an innocent bystander,” Hagerty said.

Detectives said a gunman in a Chevrolet Monte Carlo headed south on Towne Avenue, near 84th Place, about 4:50 p.m. Sunday and fired at an auto occupied by rival gang members. One of the bullets hit Cristal, who was standing half a block away in her yard on 84th Place. Both cars fled after the shots were fired, officers said.

Hagerty said detectives were looking for the men in the Monte Carlo and the occupants of a brown, four-door Cadillac. Detectives reportedly had several strong leads that could result in arrests in the next several days, but Hagerty declined to elaborate.

Detectives asked that anyone with additional details about the incident call them during regular business hours at (213) 485-4175. After hours, the watch commander at the 77th Street Station can accept calls at (213) 485-4162.

Neighbors--young and old--call the area a tough place to live.

“One must be careful here because you never know who may be coming down the street with a gun or whatever,” said German Torres.

Another neighbor, Alvaro Gomez, said many of the residents would like to move out of the neighborhood. “But we’re poor and we must live where we can afford to,” he said.

The girl’s immigrant parents, Angel and Maria Anguio, were well aware of the dangers. The parents, both from the Mexican state of Colima, repeatedly warned Cristal and her four siblings not to play in the street. They were only permitted to play on the front porch, Hermenina Anguio said.

“Sometimes, they’d go play next door but that’s about it,” the aunt said.

Ten-year-old Makiya Miller, a schoolmate who lives next door, said Tuesday that the girls strictly adhered to the admonition. “It does make it hard to play kick ball,” Makiya said.

Makiya and others describe Cristal as a shy girl who tried to make her parents proud of her.

“The girl went out sometimes but she mostly stayed inside to study,” one neighbor said. “She liked to put up her report cards in the house so everyone could see how well she was doing.”

Cristal’s family has struggled for answers about the shooting of the girl.

“She never hurt anyone,” the aunt said. “The family doesn’t have problems. Not with anybody. Why?”

--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE ---

Shooting victim misidentified: Cristal Flores Aguiano is the correct spelling of the victim’s name.

--- END NOTE ---