2 Men Beaten at Crips-Bloods Party : Gangs: Police find victims after breaking up large all-night unity gathering in Compton.

Two severely beaten men were discovered unconscious on a sidewalk early Monday after 150 riot-equipped officers and National Guard members ended a rowdy all-night party of newly united Crips and Bloods in Compton.

The injured men, one of them nude and the other partially clothed, apparently had been robbed, said Cmdr. Ramon Allen, in charge of field operations for the Compton Police Department.

“A witness indicated that there were a number of gang members beating them down, but the motive is unknown.” Allen said.

The two men, in their late 20s or early 30s, were in critical condition at a local hospital, one with a brain hemorrhage and the other with internal injuries. Officers found the contents of their wallets scattered at the site but could not identify them, he said.

No one was arrested, and gang members left the area quickly when Compton police officers, Guard members, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and California Highway Patrol officers arrived at the scene--an apartment complex in the 500 block of Rosecrans Avenue--on foot, in helicopters and in patrol cars, Allen said.

By the time the officers were there en masse, Allen said, the crowd had dwindled from perhaps 600 to about 250. Some of those in attendance had raced cars in the street, colliding with each other, and many cars had been double- and triple-parked, he said.

“It was time for (the party) to disperse,” Allen said, explaining why police acted. “We had no intention of making any arrests. The minute we hit the streets they (the party-goers) were gone.”

It was only after the crowd had dispersed that the injured men were found, he said.

In interviews late Monday, three people said they were at the party and knew nothing of the beatings.

“The police thought there was going to be some violence, but (the party) was breaking up when they got there,” said Earl Wood, 15, who said he is not a gang member.

The party was a celebration of a recent decision by hundreds of Crips and Bloods in Los Angeles and surrounding areas to stop a cycle of vendetta killings that has left hundreds of gang members and innocent bystanders dead over the last decade, said a 32-year-old man who claimed to be a Crip and who identified himself as Little Man.

Some of the people who live or work near the site said they were frightened at first when the party got into full swing.

“I said, ‘Oh my God.’ To see so many of them together,” said Guadalupe Garcia, 44, a seamstress who owns a shop just south of the apartment complex. “But they didn’t hurt anyone. They were just dancing and drinking with radios playing.”

The gathering, Allen said, was an offshoot of a Bloods and Crips picnic that began Sunday afternoon at Leuders Park at Rosecrans Avenue and Bullis Road in Compton.

The picnic was held to celebrate a birthday and about 400 people attended, police said. It included Crips and Bloods from Compton and Los Angeles, friends of gang members and “hangers-on,” Allen said.

When darkness began to fall, “they were asked to leave by my officers, and they left. There were no problems. Everything was cool,” said Allen, adding that police officers had monitored the picnic from the time it began.

People from the crowd, Allen surmised, took the celebration to the apartment complex about two miles west of the park.

“As numbers enlarged, they started overflowing into the streets and double parking,” said Allen. “As time progressed, they started racing up and down the street. They were doing spin-outs and burnouts and that eventually led to a couple of them colliding.

“During the whole time, surveillance was on them, also the gang unit officers made contact with people they recognized to find out what was going on,” Allen said.

Eventually, he said, off-duty Compton police officers were asked to return to work. It took until about 3:30 a.m. Monday to assemble a strong enough force from the department and other agencies to move in, he said.

A disperse order was never issued because the party-goers left quickly after authorities arrived, Allen said. “They didn’t give us an opportunity,” he said.

In unrelated incidents over the weekend, at least four people were killed and eight others injured in gang-related violence in the county, authorities said.