Man Shoots 2 Intruders in His Home : Crime: The fatal incident was preceded hours earlier by a confrontation between Winnetka homeowners and transients living nearby.

A clash between a Winnetka Neighborhood Watch group and a pair of transients driven from a makeshift cardboard hovel ended violently a few hours later when a resident shot the two men as they burglarized his house, police said Sunday.

One of the transients died instantly. The other, Ismael Rodriguez, 42, was critically wounded and remained hospitalized Sunday with bullet wounds in the chest and back.

Los Angeles police said the men broke into Raymond John Komoorian’s house in the 6500 block of Keokuk Avenue shortly after midnight in the mistaken belief that he had taken items from their crude shelter, hidden in bushes between a cul-de-sac and railroad tracks. They apparently were trying to retrieve a wallet containing credit cards and a passport belonging to a Downey man, which Neighborhood Watch volunteers had turned over to police.

Neighbors said there have been problems with transients who set up shelters along the tracks abutting their properties. It was not clear how many transients used the area for shelter. But the bushes lining a mile-long stretch along the tracks were riddled with tunnels and chamber-like “rooms,” and the area was littered with empty liquor bottles, clothing and rotting food.

To combat the problem, the South Winnetka Neighborhood Watch targeted the area for cleanup Saturday, dismantling one of the hovels behind Komoorian’s house, setting off a sequence of events that ended in gunfire.

Hours before the shooting, the transients, who seemed upset and intoxicated, were twice seen arguing with residents in the quiet cul-de-sac, according to neighbors.

Farshid Enteghami, who lives next door to Komoorian, said he confronted the men in his neighbor’s yard about 9:15 p.m. Komoorian was not at home.

One of the men insisted that Komoorian had taken his passport, papers and credit cards. Enteghami said he told the man that the wallet had been turned over to police and advised him to go to the West Valley police station.

“I live behind the fence,” Enteghami said the transient told him. “I said, ‘but there are no houses there.’ He said he was living in a cardboard box.”

Three hours later, Enteghami was awakened by the sound of gunshots.

Komoorian, a 47-year-old air-conditioning mechanic, had surprised the two men ransacking his bedroom when he returned home from a friend’s birthday party shortly after midnight, Detective Phil Quartararo said. Pillowcases and bags of clothes and jewelry had been stacked by the front door of Komoorian’s house.

Komoorian told police that he grabbed a .45-caliber handgun from inside the house after noticing his dog was acting strangely, that the bedroom door had been closed and that a light was on. He said he fired several shots when the men rushed toward him from the bedroom, Quartararo said.

One of the intruders fell to the floor, dead. He has not been identified. The other, Rodriguez, ran for nearly half a mile, leaving a trail of blood, before collapsing in the front yard of a home on Victory Boulevard near Corbin Avenue. He is in critical condition at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, police said.

Police expect to file murder charges against Rodriguez under the felony murder rule, which holds participants in crimes responsible for deaths that occur during the commission of those crimes. Quartararo said he was confident that Komoorian would not face charges.

Al Denney, a film director who heads the South Winnetka Neighborhood Watch group, said shooting the intruders “was the right thing to do.”

“I believe that anybody who walks into your house uninvited better be giving their soul over to God because their ass belongs to you,” Denney said.

On Sunday, the makeshift shelter was deserted. Cardboard boxes, clothes, liquor bottles and rotting food were strewn about. Chicken bones were scattered in the dust by a campfire. But the warren of tunnels and chambers that run through the bushes were deserted.

Denney said the shanty that the Neighborhood Watch group dismantled had three separate “rooms.” Volunteers packed up the clothes and blankets and placed them along Victory Boulevard for pickup.

The group has planted more than 800 bougainvillea plants along a mile-long stretch of track to discourage transients.