Party Crashers Blamed in Gunfight

The principal antagonists in a gun battle that killed two men at a fraternity-sorority picnic in Van Nuys were party crashers, but return fire came from at least six other locations at the crowded event, police said Monday.

Investigators said at least 10 people had taken guns to the picnic, at which four young adults also were wounded, although not critically.

Police were still picking through the grass in Woodley Park with metal detectors on Monday, seeking cartridge casings that might have been trampled into the ground as people fled for their lives.

The estimate of the number of guns involved was based on weapons confiscated, spent cartridge cases found and witnesses’ accounts, said Deputy Police Chief Mark A. Kroeker and Detective Joseph Aparicio.

“We’re still trying to sort out what happened,” Kroeker told a news conference. “There’s still lots of confusion.”

The men killed were not members of the UCLA fraternities that helped organize the event. One was identified Monday as a Navy veteran attending Compton Community College to become a probation officer.

Ironically, for the last four years the picnic’s organizers had chosen Woodley Park in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area because they thought the San Fernando Valley would be a safer location and less likely to attract strangers than sites in South or Central Los Angeles, where many of the black fraternity and sorority members grew up.

The shooting ended an otherwise peaceful celebration of the 14th annual African People’s Step Show Weekend, a gathering sponsored by the UCLA chapter of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, an umbrella group that represents black fraternities and sororities nationwide.

“Anytime you have an event like that, you’ll attract an outside element,” said Anthony Thomas, 22, a UCLA senior and co-chair of the event. “We’ve had the event at Woodley Park, outside of Los Angeles, for these reasons.”

Kroeker said the picnic--with food, music and beer--drew more than 1,500 people at its height--many of them unaffiliated with the sponsoring fraternities or sororities and apparently uninvited.

Police arrested one man, Calvin Peter Maspero Jr., 21, of Los Angeles, on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon, but released him on $1,000 bail after questioning. Kroeker said, “We don’t believe he was a shooter.”

In addition, police impounded five cars, none of which belonged to fraternity or sorority members, and confiscated four guns, Kroeker said.

Several people who attended the picnic said it was widely advertised on college campuses throughout Southern California, and that many guests who were not in fraternities or sororities were alumni or invited by friends.

A fight about 6:40 p.m. among a group of apparently uninvited picnickers led to the shooting, Kroeker said, declining to discuss details.

A witness, 22-year-old Scott Charles of Carson, said the shooting began after a group of six to eight youths provoked a dispute with a young woman. One of the men, Charles said, fondled the woman’s breasts, angering her and a male friend.

“They didn’t even start a fight, they just started walking through the crowd,” shouting obscenities, Charles recalled. They returned to where they had parked “like they were leaving,” but two men in the group got guns from one or more cars and began shooting--one in the air, the other indiscriminately at the crowd, Charles said.

With that, Charles said, other people in different parts of the park began shooting back with their own weapons.

“There were gunshots going off consistently for like 10 minutes,” said Charles, who went to the picnic with his childhood friend, Charles Wright, 22, of Los Angeles, one of the two men killed.

The other man killed was identified Monday as Eric Carver, 23, of Carson, who did not belong to a fraternity. Injured were Tanisha Tate, 18, wounded in the leg; Reginald Patterson, 21, wounded in the arm; Candice Givens, 18, wounded in the neck, and Michael Crump, 21, wounded in the leg.

Charles and other witnesses described a scene of pandemonium with 300 to 500 remaining picnickers diving for cover under cars and in large concrete pipes stacked along nearby Woodley Avenue.

“People started fighting and the fighting started into shooting,” said Tomeko Rogers, 20, Wright’s girlfriend. “From there, gunshots started coming from all directions.”

Charles said he was looking for Wright when he found Givens, another friend, lying wounded on the ground, and helped her until paramedics arrived.

“I took off my shirt and put it under her neck,” Charles said. “I was just talking to her, praying with her, till paramedics got there. Then I found out Charlie was over there.”

Wright died at Northridge Hospital from a gunshot wound to his chest, police said. He had graduated from James Monroe High School in the Valley, completed four years in the Navy, and was studying at Compton Community College to become a probation officer, said Rogers.

At UCLA on Monday, free counseling services were available for students traumatized by the shootout, according to Joan Brown, spokeswoman for fraternity and sorority relations at the university’s Center for Student Programming.

“The event has been peaceful for the last 14 years,” said Mark McCannon, 22, a senior who was one of the organizers of the weekend’s events. “It’s a festive type of thing--we’re just out there having fun, eating, rejoicing and just bonding.”

Thomas said he remains convinced that the attackers were not affiliated with any of the university’s eight black fraternities and sororities, which together sponsored the annual event.

Times staff writer Sam Enriquez contributed to this story.