Girl Dies, 2 Hurt in Northridge Gang Shooting

A 16-year-old girl from Cleveland High School was killed, and two other students wounded, in a gang-related shooting on a Northridge residential street Monday afternoon, police said.

The dead girl was identified as Rocio Delgado, police said.

“It appears to be gang-related,” Los Angeles Homicide Detective Tom Broad said. “I think the gang problem in the San Fernando Valley is reaching a point where it is out of control.”

Although the shooting occurred just a few hours after a student was killed by another student at Reseda High School, and involved students from Cleveland High School in North Hills, police said the two shootings did not appear to be related to each other or to the North Hills school.

Two groups of teen-agers got into an argument about 3:15 p.m. while standing in the street in the 19100 block of Napa Street, near the intersection of Vanalden Avenue, Broad said.

A fight broke out between a boy from Cleveland and some youths in the street, Broad said. One of the other youths “pulled out a handgun, several shots were fired and three were hit,” Broad said.

A 16-year-old boy shot in the torso--Alejandro Rivera of Northridge--was taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where he was reported in serious condition after surgery, police said.

A 17-year-old girl, Aidee Hernandez Mejia of Northridge, was shot in the buttocks. She was treated and released from another nearby hospital, Broad said.

Police were seeking four to five male suspects.