Killer Strikes Fear in Tough Area of L.A.

Residents in the tough neighborhoods of north Harbor City have grown used to living with gangbanging and drug dealing, with the bullets that occasionally rip through their walls, and with the crack addicts who drift into the area looking for a buy and somebody to rob.

But now a different kind of violence has come to their streets, one that has further unnerved even these crime-weary residents. During the last four months, in a three-block area of tired houses and newer apartment buildings, police say four black men have been shot, three of them fatally, by a white man with reddish hair, a serial killer with an unknown motive.

The latest shooting occurred last weekend when a 38-year-old man was shot in the 1100 block of West 253rd Street by a man driving a red Jeep.

“I’m the only one who can identify him,” the man said Saturday, his chest pockmarked with three healing bullet wounds, as he stood in the doorway of his sister’s house. He said he is “scared to death” of another attempt on his life. For that reason, police are withholding his name, and he declined to say anything else about his ordeal.

Worried that the killer may strike again, Los Angeles police on Friday night disclosed his deadly toll for the first time and asked potential witnesses to come forward. They cautioned people of all colors in the area to be careful.

“This is an ugly case and has the potential for creating well-reasoned fear throughout the community,” Lt. Sergio Robleto of the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau homicide division said Saturday. “So we’re saying let’s all work together in solving the case.”

Asked how police have linked the four shootings, Robleto said the cases stood out among the division’s other homicides because of the “consistency of the victims and the tightness of the pattern in such a small geographical area.” He refused to confirm a radio report that the connection had been established through ballistics evidence.

The victims have been identified as Howard L. Campbell, 32, who died Jan. 31 as he stood near the corner of West 252nd Street and Marigold Avenue; Michael Kevin Meador, 35, who died Feb. 14 near the same spot, and Joseph Alexander Maxwell, 26, who was shot to death as he stood in the 1000 block of West 254th Street.

Except for one killing that took place in the early morning hours, the shootings occurred between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. In each case, police said, the suspect approached the victims, beckoned them over and then shot them.

“This is really sinister,” said City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who represents the neighborhood. “The same person appears to be returning to this neighborhood for executions. It is very frightening for anyone in the community.”

Jesus Valencia, 22, an unemployed fiberglass worker, said people are keeping children indoors more now because of the spate of killings in the mostly African-American and Latino neighborhood.

“It’s very strange,” he said. “Usually, it’s blacks killing blacks over drug deals. This is the first time I’ve seen a white guy shoot a black man.”

Russell James, 35, an African-American carpenter who frequently visits friends in the neighborhood, said he usually looks over his shoulder when he passes through but will sharpen his guard with the killer on the loose.

“The guys he killed may or may not have been angels, but it looks like he picked them off for no reason and that scares me,” James said.

A 15-year-old girl who witnessed the slaying of Campbell said: “I don’t even like to walk outside here anymore” after what she saw that night. A white man in a Jeep pulled up, she recalled, then “it was pow, pow, pow. He shot him in the chest and it came out his back.”

She ran indoors, fearing she would be next.

Two weeks later, she was inside her house when the second killing occurred on the same corner, 252nd and Marigold.

She rushed outside to see paramedics trying to revive Meador with electric shocks to his chest. And that was enough for her. She moved in with a relative in Long Beach.

For the most part, the victims had troubled backgrounds and a history of brushes with the law, according to neighbors, friends and relatives.

Meador’s cousin, who was throwing dice with friends outside an abandoned crack house, said the victim’s father recently died and his wife was killed last year by a stray bullet. The father of three children, Meador had recently been released from prison. “Things were looking up for him,” the cousin said.

Terry Hess, a homeless friend, said Meador had recently turned away from dealing drugs and had begun working at a Gardena factory. “He was trying to get his life together,” said Hess, saying he and Meador took long walks each day together and helped each other leave drugs behind.

Another victim, Maxwell, had moved to Los Angeles from Alabama in his late teens, worked at the Long Beach shipyard cleaning equipment and was visiting his girlfriend in the neighborhood when he was shot.

“He had a real accent. He talked country,” said his close friend, Majon (Little One) Scott, standing on a street corner where the two other men were shot.

Maxwell, he said, often worked overtime to help provide for his 4-year-old girl, who had been abandoned by her mother at birth. “He wanted the best for his little girl,” he said. On his days off, Maxwell rode his mountain bike, pedaling as far way as Magic Mountain.

“He had it all right. I feel bad. It could have been me,” said Scott, tears welling in his eyes. “I miss him.” Maxwell was buried in Alabama.

The neighborhood where Maxwell and the others were shot has been in serious decline for some time. The drug dealing and gang activity has become so intense that Councilwoman Flores has tried for the last two years to target the area for a gang abatement program.

The City Council last month asked the city attorney to redouble efforts to seek a court injunction that would bar gang members from congregating and other activities.

“This is someone coming in from outside of the area,” Flores said. “But we have a problem with dopers congregating on the streets here. With abatement, these people might not have been hanging out on the streets and the killings might have been avoided.”

Many people have moved from the neighborhood, worried that their children would be caught in the swirl of crime. But others, too poor to get out, carry on. They secure themselves in their homes at night or defiantly refuse to let the disorder rule their lives.

They are people like Gabriel Tobar, 19, who reclined on a porch swing and offered the facts of life in the neighborhood he has grown up in.

“Over there,” he said with a nod, “that’s a clucker”--a crack addict.

An unshaven man in torn clothing with bloodshot eyes hustled by Tobar’s brother’s car, which sports seven bullet holes after getting in the way of stray gunfire.

“You hear gunshots here like it’s the way of life,” said Tobar, a high school dropout who works part-time as a mechanic. “You can hear them from everywhere.”

Not long ago, he said, a bullet came through the wall and knocked a bottle of rubbing alcohol onto his sister’s head. He chuckled at the recollection, then quickly realized how it must sound to a stranger.

“You laugh at it but when you think about it, it could have hit you,” he said.

Tobar said that he still ventures out at night and that the recent killings will not deter him. Not because he is Latino, unlike the victims, but because he doesn’t want the fear of crime to dictate his life.

“I got a right to walk around,” he said. “I’m not going to let it control me.”

Anyone with information about the shootings can call an LAPD special 24-hour line at (213) 237-1776 or (213) 237-1310 Monday through Friday.

Times staff writer K. Connie Kang contributed to this report.