Venice Patrols Increased After Weekend Shootings

Police stepped up patrols in and around Venice on Monday after a spate of weekend shootings left two people dead and four injured--among them an actor who portrayed a gang leader in the movie “South Central.”

Actor Byron Keith Minns, 23, was one of four people wounded in back-to-back drive-by shootings Sunday night in Venice. Earlier in the weekend, two people were fatally shot in Venice and Mar Vista in attacks that police said appeared gang-related.

A police spokesman said Monday it was unclear whether the incidents Sunday night were related to the earlier shootings. But additional police were deployed amid fears that the shootings may signal the resumption of a local gang war that had quieted for several months.

Minns, of Van Nuys, was in good condition at UCLA Medical Center with bullet wounds to the arm, back and abdomen, a hospital spokeswoman said. Minns portrayed the founder of a street gang in the 1992 film produced by Oliver Stone. Minns also had a role in the recently released “Above the Rim,” about a basketball player trying to escape life in the slums.

None of the four victims in Sunday night’s drive-by incidents were affiliated with gangs, and police had no motive for the attacks, which occurred minutes apart at the edge of Marina del Rey. Both attacks were believed carried out by the same carload of three men.

“I’m willing to bet that those three suspects who shot (Minns) had no idea who he was,” said Lt. Otis Dobine of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Pacific Division.

Shortly before 10 p.m. Sunday, the attackers pulled alongside a car at Venice and Abbot Kinney boulevards and shot the two occupants several times, Dobine said. Marquis Cooley, 20, was listed in critical condition at UCLA with a wound to the lung. Tonika Grant, 23, was treated and released from a Kaiser Permanente facility on the Westside.

The gunmen drove a mile east to Lincoln and Washington boulevards and opened fire as Minns was leaving a music store, Dobine said. Another pedestrian, identified as Abelardo Lopez, 37, was hit several times. He was listed in critical condition Monday at UCLA with wounds to the face and jaw.

The attackers’ vehicle was described as a light-colored 1970s Chevrolet Camaro or Pontiac Firebird. The gunmen were described as Latinos.

Early Sunday morning, Manuel Hernandez, 18, was shot dead outside a party at a Mar Vista housing project. Mario Lopez, said to be in his early 20s, was shot and killed early Saturday in the Oakwood section of Venice.