Dorsey Student Wounded in Attack Near Campus Dies

Eddie Gamez, a 14-year-old student at Dorsey High in Southwest Los Angeles who was shot Monday on his way to school, died Thursday.

Gamez was walking with several friends shortly after 8 a.m. Monday when a car pulled up and a gunman got out and opened fire. Gamez was wounded in the head, chest and groin, said Warren Robak, spokesman at UCLA Medical Center. The wounds were so severe that from the outset Los Angeles Police Department detectives were treating the case as a homicide; Det. Paul Mize said investigators would have been surprised if Gamez had survived.

Aldo Domiguez, 16, and Alberto Ruiz, 14, were also wounded in the attack, but both have been released from the hospital.

Police have speculated that the shooting was gang retaliation for the shooting death a week ago of a 30-year-old man on Washington Boulevard and 10th Avenue, about two miles away.

Mize said none of the boys shot Monday were gang members. “They had no criminal records, and no gang tattoos,” he said.

Dorsey has experienced several shootings near the campus in the past. In 1993, officials recorded 50 crimes against students, but with the deployment of extra police, the attacks dropped dramatically. In 1994, there was one recorded attack on a student and Dorsey became a model for other schools in dealing with violence near campus.

In December, parents of a Dorsey student wounded in a 1993 shooting won an $80,000 judgment against the Los Angeles Unified School District.