At Least 25 Killed in Riot-Related Violence, Coroner Says : Rampage: Several die in encounters with police. Some other fatalities result from civilian clashes.

At least 25 people had been killed in riot-related violence by late Thursday night, with nearly a third of the victims dying in encounters with police, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

Officials said two men were killed by Los Angeles police in a gun battle in the Nickerson Gardens housing project late Wednesday. Another was shot to death, and a woman wounded, by Inglewood police during an attempted robbery about 9:50 p.m. Wednesday, officials said.

One man was killed under unexplained circumstances by Compton police about 2 p.m. Thursday, and three died in an auto crash after a high-speed chase with Beverly Hills police late Wednesday. Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a 15-year-old black youth suspected of looting and firing at officers.

Inglewood police also shot and wounded four suspected looters who allegedly had fired at them.

The other fatalities resulted from civilian clashes in the supercharged atmosphere of violence that descended on South Los Angeles after four officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney G. King.

Identities of most of the dead were being withheld until next-of-kin could be notified by coroner’s officials.

The identities of assailants could prove more elusive than in the street crimes that often beset South Los Angeles. In the chaos of the ongoing unrest, investigators do not expect to find many clues.

“These are going to be very difficult to solve,” said Lt. Rich Molony of the LAPD’s South Bureau homicide section. “There are no witnesses, nothing.”

The dead--24 males and a woman--ranged in age from 15 to 49. All but six of them were black, according to the coroner’s office. Three whites and three Latinos also were killed.

Coroner’s officials listed the 25 dead as “possibly riot-related,” but Molony, whose staff is investigating seven of the killings, concluded that “they’re all riot-related.”

The rioting, he said, “created a climate out there. . . . If you wanted to take someone out, now’s the time to do it.”

Most of the victims died of gunshot wounds, although one cause of death was preliminarily listed by coroner’s officials as “multiple blunt force trauma to the head,” and one as a pedestrian hit by a car.

Some of the victims appeared to have been randomly attacked.

Arturo Miranda, 20, of Los Angeles, was driving home from soccer practice with his family when a bullet tore through the vehicle and hit him in the head. His family raced to Memorial Hospital in Gardena, where he was pronounced dead.

Louis Watson, 18, was fatally wounded at Vernon and Vermont avenues about 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, under circumstances that could not immediately be determined by police or coroner’s officials.

Dennis Jackson, 38, of Los Angeles, was one of two men shot and killed Wednesday night by LAPD officers at the Nickerson Gardens housing project.

Police, who were in the neighborhood to guard firefighters, said they were shot at by snipers and returned fire in a gun battle at the troubled southeast Los Angeles public housing facility.

Several other officers were pinned down in the firefight, and the LAPD’s V-100, an armored vehicle, was brought into rescue the patrolmen, officials said. Officers returned to the scene in the V-100 to pick up two black males wounded the shootout. Paramedics responded but the victims were pronounced dead at the scene.

LAPD officials said they were not aware of any other officer-involved shootings by their department in the rioting.

In Inglewood, police came upon a robbery in progress about 9:50 p.m. at Century Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue. Authorities said the victim, wearing a mask and brandishing a handgun, was killed by officers.