Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Police Had His Number

A shooting suspect inadvertently helped police reach out and catch him this week when a cellular phone he used set police on his trail.

The 17-year-old youth had gotten into a fight with another boy Wednesday evening in the 7000 block of Lasaine Avenue in Reseda, Los Angeles Police Detective Bud Mehringer said. The teen-ager allegedly pulled a gun and fired a round that struck the other youth in the stomach.

Responding to a call for help, police arrived at the scene and found the shooting victim but no suspect, Mehringer said. The armed youth had apparently fled to a nearby house, where he borrowed a telephone to make a call.

Suspecting something was amiss after they spotted the boy’s sweat shirt in their bushes, the residents called police after the boy had left, Mehringer said. Officers who arrived at the home pressed the cellular phone’s redial key to figure out whom the youth had called.

The trick led police to their suspect, who investigators said subsequently confessed to the shooting and then took officers to a trash can in an alley in the 17000 block of Sherman Way, where a gun was recovered.

The shooting victim, also 17, was taken to a hospital in satisfactory condition.