Suspects in Police Ambush Will Face Murder Charge : Crime: The homicide count is a result of an assailant being shot and killed when anti-gang officers returned fire. One man is in custody, another is being sought.

Two men suspected of ambushing two anti-gang police officers in South-Central Los Angeles were charged with murder on Thursday because another attacker was killed when police returned fire.

One of the accused men, Von Raymond Pledger, 27, was arrested a few hours after the shooting Tuesday night, but the other, Terrance Thomas, 20, was still at large late Thursday.

Police said the two suspects were among “known gang members” who allegedly shot at two officers from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums unit as they were transporting a young arrestee in an unmarked police car. The unidentified, 17-year-old suspect and Officer Ray Mendoza, 35--who was riding in the back seat with him--were wounded.

The CRASH officers shot and killed one of the assailants, later identified as Vernon Beasley, 22. The other assailants fled, touching off a nightlong search in the vicinity of the shooting, which occurred about 6:30 p.m. at 53rd Street and Broadway.

Pledger and Thomas have been charged with murder, attempted murder, assault with a firearm on a police officer, assault with a firearm on a civilian, shooting at an occupied vehicle and conspiracy to commit murder. Pledger also was charged with being an ex-convict in possession of a firearm. Bail for Pledger was set at $1 million.

The charges came near the end of an especially tense week for the LAPD, some of whose officers said ambush attempts by gang members are becoming more common.

The day before the South-Central Los Angeles shootout, an anonymous facsimile message was sent to the LAPD threatening retaliation for the release from prison of Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and Officer Laurence M. Powell while their attorneys appeal their civil rights convictions in the beating of Rodney G. King.

Police discounted any connection between the threat and the South-Central Los Angeles attack.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday Police Chief Willie L. Williams issued a directive that two officers be assigned to all patrol units, ending the practice of having some officers patrol alone.

His directive came the same day that the Los Angeles Police Protective League called on officers to stick closely to LAPD regulations and to “take no action beyond that which is required that might put any member in additional danger.”

That night, in the second attack on police officers in as many days, two suspected gang members were arrested and a third was being sought after they allegedly fired at an anti-gang detail in Venice.

No one was injured in the incident, which police said began when officers responded to a citizen’s report of a disturbance in the city’s Oakwood section about 9 p.m.