Suspected Gang Members Held in Slayings of 2 Men : Crime: Victims were videotaping Crenshaw-area cruisers when killed. Arrests made in series of raids.

More than 100 law enforcement officers descended on 18 residences from Inglewood to Colton before dawn Tuesday, arresting 11 alleged gang members in the fatal shootings of two men who had tried to videotape cars cruising along Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Nine of the suspects were booked in the Nov. 15 slayings of Stephan Ryan Pope, 19, and Ravi Vijar Cherkoori, 22, members of a local car club. Police said the two had simply pointed their camera “at the wrong people”--30 to 40 suspected gang members who were in several vehicles.

A 10th man later surrendered to police and was held on murder charges. Fourteen others were being sought on the same charges.

All the suspects are members of a Crenshaw-area gang that police believe is responsible for at least 20 killings in the city in the last two years, said Lt. Sergio Robleto of the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau Homicide Division.

Robleto would not name the gang for fear of more violence from other gangs moving in to take over its turf because of the arrests.

The two car enthusiasts were killed when a group of angry men attacked them after a brief argument--stomping, beating and shooting both, Robleto said.

Videotaping strangers has become especially dangerous, Robleto said, since videotapes were used in the arrests of participants in the Los Angeles riots, including the men accused of attacking trucker Reginald O. Denny. The Pope-Cherkoori slayings occurred less than two miles from the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues, where Denny was beaten.

“A lot of folks don’t like to be videotaped,” Robleto said. The alleged gang members, he said, thought the pair were videotaping them instead of the popular weekend cruising scene at a 24-hour gas station at Crenshaw and Florence.

Police on Tuesday were still searching for the missing camera and any tape that Pope and Cherkoori may have shot the night they were killed.

In the raids Tuesday morning, Los Angeles police officers and federal firearms agents confiscated at least 16 guns, ammunition, a military-style flak jacket and bags of athletic shoes that may have been worn by some of those who took part in the attack on Pope and Cherkoori.

Investigators hope to match distinctive patterns on the bottoms of the shoes to patterns found on the bodies and clothing of the dead men.

Robleto said the police action Tuesday, combined with more arrests to come, would be a major blow to the Crenshaw-area gang, which he said has about 200 members.

“No one is saying we decimated it,” Robleto said. “But we have certainly impacted their operations and taken out the most violent clique.”

The arrests occurred between 4 and 4:30 a.m. Most were in the neighborhoods around Crenshaw Boulevard, where the gang primarily operates, Robleto said, but some took place in Inglewood and at least one was in Colton, a San Bernardino County community about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

Federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco took part in the raids, primarily to help LAPD investigators analyze the guns and other evidence with the agency’s sophisticated equipment, but also to determine if federal laws were violated, said Resident Agent Jay Wactel, in charge of the bureau’s Long Beach office.

Police identified the arrested murder suspects as Michael Yearwood, 21; Brian Christopher Neal, 28; Michael John Sampson, 19; Takje Lamont Williams, 22; Randale Hardson, 19; Carl Lamont Higgins, 18; Issac Hamilton, 23; Eric Williams, 23, and Russell Ernest James, 19.

The man who turned himself in was identified as Derrick Carter, 22, of Los Angeles. Two other people who were taken into custody during the raids were questioned and released.