SOUTH BAY NEWS : Inglewood Posts Reward in Killing Spree by Gangs : Crime: $25,000 is offered for the arrest--not necessarily conviction--of a suspect. Random violence has caused some residents to change the way they live.

While anguished parents mourned their dead children and fearful Inglewood residents altered their daily routines to avoid violence, the Inglewood City Council posted a $25,000 reward for the killers responsible for two nights of unprecedented gang violence last week.

Eleven people were gunned down and five of them, including a 2-year-old girl and a 14-year-old cheerleader, were killed.

Meanwhile, Inglewood police announced that a 16-year-old Los Angeles youth was arrested Monday and was expected to be charged with murder in the death of the cheerleader, Tila Lashay French. Police said they withheld announcing the arrest until Wednesday to avoid tipping off other suspects who are still wanted in the case.

Inglewood Police Sgt. Alex Perez offered few details concerning the arrest, except to say that leads were developed through citizen tips. At least two other suspects in the French shooting were still being sought, Perez said. He said he did not know whether the youth is also suspected in the other slayings.

After protests from residents at the council meeting that a proposed $10,000 reward was not enough either to lure someone to turn in a suspect or to show the city’s anger, the council increased the reward.

“We’re talking about five lives, and ($10,000) is not enough,” said Beverly Burris, who knew three of the victims.

Burris showed the council and a standing-room-only crowd of about 150 a photo of victim Garland E. Money, a family friend.

“I came here to humanize him for you,” Burris said. “He was a good boy.”

The council made the award payable for an arrest, not necessarily a conviction.

“As we’ve seen with even the Menendez case, a conviction isn’t guaranteed even when the people confess to doing it,” said Councilman Garland Hardeman, referring to hung juries in the trials of Erik and Lyle Menendez, who killed their parents.

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Inglewood city officials have been notified that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors intends to offer an additional $5,000 for information leading to convictions in the shootings.

In last week’s rampage, all the dead and four of the wounded were hit in what police believe were gang-related shootings. Two other people were wounded during apparent attempted robberies.

Based on witness descriptions, police believe some assailants might have been involved in several of the shootings.

The first to be killed was Kyiara Nicole Morrow-Jackson, 2, who was shot while her mother, Gina Morrow, 23, was standing in front of their home on West 78th Street, talking to a male friend shortly before 7 p.m. Jan. 26. Three men in a brown or gray Cadillac drove up and, according to police, might have thought Morrow’s friend was a rival gang member because he was wearing a red shirt. They got out of the car and opened fire with 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistols, wounding Morrow in the thigh and hitting her daughter in the chest. The young girl died later at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center.

French was the second victim. She was shot about 7:30 p.m. while she stood with a group of friends in the 800 block of North Eucalyptus Avenue. The Inglewood teen-ager was a freshman at Hawthorne High School.

“She was so funny and lively and outgoing,” said French’s longtime friend Kona Tamba. “I can’t picture her dead. Just the other day I was talking to her and laughing with her.”

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The next victims were three 21-year-old men sitting in a parked car on North Market Street shortly before 8:30 p.m. Thursday. Two or three men armed with assault rifles got out of a dark-colored small car, possibly a Honda or Hyundai, and riddled the men’s car with dozens of bullets. Garland E. Money, Sean Omar Williams and Kenneth Darryl Cannon were killed.

The violence has changed many Inglewood residents’ lives. All those interviewed at random on city streets say their fear level has increased. Some take different routes to work to avoid dangerous areas. Most say they don’t venture out at night unless they have to--and some won’t leave their homes after dark for any reason.

Bryan Runnels, 32, a barber who has lived in Inglewood for about 20 years, said the gang violence has altered his daily movements--and his wardrobe.

“I worry about what to wear every morning,” Runnels said. An African American male, he never wears red or blue clothing, lest gang members mistake him for a member of a rival gang identified by those colors.

“I used to walk home from work at night, but now I get a ride. It’s only four or five blocks, but it’s a dangerous walk. I never used to be nervous about walking home before,” he said.

For Sally Ann Hoofe, an Inglewood resident for five years, the fear began in a hail of bullets two months ago as she walked to the laundry. Three men in a car began shooting at a man running on the sidewalk. “I ran and threw myself down behind a car. I almost had a heart attack and I’m still not over it,” she said.

Hoofe doesn’t go out in the evening anymore. “If I need to do something, it gets done before it gets dark. I’m telling you, this madness has got to stop.”

Inglewood police believe the violence was part of an ongoing war between Inglewood gangs and members of a rival gang in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles. The killings in Inglewood might have been prompted by earlier killings outside the city by Inglewood gangs.

Police stress that in almost all the cases, the Inglewood victims were not gang members.

Gang members “seem to be satisfied if they shoot anybody in the enemy’s territory,” Sgt. Perez said. “It’s just random. We aren’t dealing with brain surgeons here.”

Inglewood Police Chief Oliver M. Thompson said last week that it would be “appropriate” for Inglewood residents to remain at home after dark to avoid violence.

Despite last week’s blood bath, Inglewood police said gang-related crime in this city of 112,000 has declined 27% in the past two years. Police released crime statistics indicating gang-related homicides dropped 19%, from 31 in 1992 to 25 in 1993. Gang-related assaults also declined 19%, from 339 to 275.

On the other hand, the statistics showed that shooting at an inhabited dwelling increased 38%, from 37 incidents in 1992 to 51 in 1993.

Perez said there have been similar decreases in gang-related violence throughout the county. Several well-publicized gang truces might have been a factor, he said.