Youth Hurt in Shooting at Hospital : Violence: The attack was the first at Daniel Freeman facility. It is the latest in a series of incidents at L.A. emergency rooms.

In what authorities described as a gang-related attack, a teen-ager was shot early Sunday morning in the emergency department waiting room of Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood.

It was the latest incidence of violence at a Los Angeles hospital emergency room. Last February, a man critically wounded three physicians in the emergency waiting area at County-USC Medical Center. During a six-month period in 1991, officials at County-USC logged 1,400 incidents of violence or threats.

The shooting was the first at Daniel Freeman, which is owned by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and won high praise for treating scores of victims during last year’s riots.

“We have never had anything of this nature, ever,” said Sister Regina Claire, an administrator.

The shooting Sunday was part of a bizarre graveyard shift, during which the hospital’s emergency department closed briefly.

“You need a score card to keep track,” said Inglewood Police Sgt. Alex Perez.

According to the accounts by Claire and Inglewood police, this is what happened:

About 1 a.m., a group of gang members arrived at the emergency department, seeking treatment from a fight. One member had a bullet wound to the chest and was operated on; the others had minor injuries and were treated and released.

About 2:30 a.m., a second group of gang members arrived. One was treated for an injured hand.

About 10 minutes later, for reasons that remained unclear, a member of the first group fired a handgun from the parking lot through the emergency department doors, striking a member of the second group in the thigh. The gunman fired up to four other shots, but no one else was hit, said hospital spokeswoman Brandon E. Faulk.

The gunman fled immediately. One of the hospital’s unarmed security guards ordered everyone in the emergency department waiting room to lie on the floor in case there was more gunfire.

There was none, but the bedlam was not over.

Inside the emergency department, the gang member who had been treated for the injured hand began displaying what Perez termed “extremely volatile” behavior toward hospital workers. Inglewood police officers, who had arrived within one minute of the shooting, used puffs of a caustic, pepper-juice substance to subdue the youth.

The hospital then briefly closed the emergency department until the tear-inducing spray dissipated.

In addition to being the first shooting at Daniel Freeman’s emergency department, Perez said the episode also was unusual because the gang members lingered at the hospital.

“More often than not, when their (cohorts) are wounded, they just drop them off and get the heck out of there,” to avoid arrest, Perez said.

Perez said his department will work with Los Angeles police to piece together what events caused the groups--which he said were affiliated with the Crips and Bloods gangs--to go to the hospital. Perez said officers are certain that the two groups had not fought with each other earlier.

The 16-year-old wounded in the thigh was listed in good condition. The gang member who underwent surgery for a wound to his chest was listed in critical condition. Both victims’ names were kept confidential because of their age.