10th-Grader Slain at Hollywood High as Rival Gangs Clash

A 10th-grader at Hollywood High School was fatally wounded on campus Wednesday in what police said was a fight between rival gangs shortly after classes had been dismissed for the day.

Rolando Ruiz, 17, was shot once in the chest shortly after 3:30 p.m. as scores of students and passersby moved through the busy intersection of Highland Avenue and Sunset Boulevard.

“There were other students around,” said Los Angeles Police Detective Bernard Rogers. “It was fairly crowded; school was letting out. This intersection is busy all the time.”

Ruiz was shot during an altercation on Highland, just north of Sunset, police said. He was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where he died, investigators said.

Ruiz, whom police described as a gang member, was standing on the sidewalk on Highland when three or four rival gang members stopped their car in traffic, jumped out and confronted him, Rogers said.

There was a brief fight before Ruiz was shot, Rogers said. The suspects then ran to their car, but it was stuck in traffic at the intersection, the detective said.

They abandoned the car on Highland and fled on foot, Rogers said.

School district spokesman Bill Rivera said a Hollywood High administrator, whose identity was not immediately available, attempted unsuccessfully to catch one of the suspects.

The abandoned car is a late-1960s model gray Chevrolet Camaro with California license plate number 622 WOF. It was not immediately known to whom the car was registered. A light burgundy-colored baseball bat lay on the floor beside the driver’s seat.

“The car has not been reported stolen,” Rogers said.

Hours after the shooting, Ruiz’s clothing lay on the lawn outside the school. Normally busy traffic at the intersection of Sunset and Highland slowed to a crawl as police diverted cars away from the crime scene.

Rivera said Ruiz had preregistered for classes that began last week at the year-round school, but that he had not yet enrolled.

Wednesday’s shooting was the latest in a series of armed assaults on Los Angeles-area school campuses that have left school administrators searching for ways to curb campus violence.

In December, a 17-year-old Chatsworth High School student was shot three times in front of the west San Fernando Valley campus after he refused to surrender his backpack to two robbers. The student recovered after undergoing surgery.

A 15-year-old boy, who was seeking a transfer to Dorsey High School in Southwest Los Angeles, was shot in the chest but was back as classes resumed for the new school year last September.

Shootings also claimed the lives of students at Fairfax and Reseda high schools in incidents on campus in early 1993.