3 Held in Gang Retaliation That Killed Boy, 7

Evan Foster, the 7-year-old boy killed last week by an errant bullet in an Inglewood park, was the innocent victim of a “sick” incident linked to unrelenting gang warfare, police said Monday in announcing the arrest of three murder suspects.

A fourth suspect, who police believe wildly fired an assault-style weapon in blind retaliation for an earlier attack, remains at large, police said.

Evan, who was buried Monday, was shot in the head and his 10-month-old brother, Alec, was wounded the evening of Dec. 8, in Darby Park. The reputed Crips gang members accused in the crime were upset over a fatal shooting two hours earlier on their South Los Angeles turf, police said.

“Our suspects were very angry over their homeboys being killed,” Inglewood Police Det. Mark Campbell said at an afternoon news conference. “They went out looking to kill.”

Campbell also said: “At that time, the mood of the suspects was they were going to kill something.”

A 30-year-old Inglewood man who happened to be in Darby Park was apparently selected as a target because he was standing by his red Cadillac, the color of the rival Bloods gang, detectives said.

The intended victim is not a gang member and was not connected to the South Los Angeles shooting earlier on Dec. 8, detectives said. He happened to be waiting for a friend in the parking lot next to the car carrying the Foster boys when he was approached about 7 p.m. by a group of men who quickly brandished two guns and opened fire.

The intended victim, whose name has not been released, was not hurt in the attack. Neither was Rhonda Foster, the boys’ mother, who said Monday at her son’s funeral that she tried desperately to maneuver her car--her sons were sitting in the back seat--out of the line of fire.

Evan was hit in the head and killed instantly. Alec was hit in the left eye by metal fragments. He appeared Monday at his brother’s funeral wearing a plastic eye patch held on by a green headband.

“I think they were sorry a child was killed,” Campbell said of the suspects. “But I can’t say there was any remorse.”

Arrested Saturday after the service of search warrants in Los Angeles and Compton were Ollie Wilkins, 18, of Los Angeles, Kevin Bookman, 21, of Los Angeles and a 17-year-old Los Angeles youth whose name was withheld because he is a juvenile.

Arraignments for Wilkins and Bookman are scheduled for today in Inglewood Municipal Court, police said.

Detectives said they were still searching for Charles Baker, 21, whose street moniker is “Nine Ball” and who is believed to have fired the assault-style weapon used to kill the boy.

Police said they recovered that weapon, a MAC-90, as well as a .22-caliber rifle. They said the .22 was brandished--but it jammed.

The MAC-90 is a semiautomatic weapon, a look-alike of the AK47. It can use large-capacity magazines containing dozens of rounds and costs as little as $200. It is legal in California--unless outfitted with certain military-style features.

Detectives declined to provide full details about the MAC-90 they believe was used in the attack in the park.

They said the attack apparently followed a shooting at 5 p.m. the same day in the 9500 block of South Manhattan Place in Los Angeles, a few blocks east of the Inglewood border.

In that incident, three men--believed by authorities to be associated with a set of the Crips gang--were walking down the street. Suddenly, someone fired at them, Los Angeles Police Det. Scott Masterson said.

Killed at the scene, Masterson said, was James Coulter, 29, of Los Angeles.

Darryl Harvey, 16, of Los Angeles died later at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, Masterson said.

A 16-year-old Los Angeles youth was wounded, Masterson said.

After Coulter and Harvey were shot, other reputed members of the same Crips set “went hunting,” Campbell said.

Police picked up “11 or 12” casings in the Darby Park lot where Evan was killed, he said. They also located--in an Inglewood alley--a white Toyota Corolla they said was the getaway car. Police said the car had been burned.

At her son’s funeral, attended by several hundred mourners at the Crenshaw Christian Center, Rhonda Foster said she had noticed the red Cadillac parked next to her gold Ford Thunderbird because she could hear its radio playing a song she liked.

She said Evan, at the park to register for a winter basketball league, had happily dressed himself in a two-piece Batman suit he had bought with his savings.

As she started the Thunderbird, she said, the Cadillac radio went quiet--and then, moments later, she saw guns. “Oh my God,” she recalled saying, and jammed the car in reverse, swerving back “just as fast as I could.”

When the shooting stopped, she said, she immediately became alarmed because “there was silence in the car.” Evan, she said, was not saying something like “Mom, what did you do that for?”

Instead, he was slumped over in the right rear seat. “He was still warm,” she said. “It seemed like he was still breathing.”

She said she grabbed Alec and took him to the park’s recreation center, where she handed him to a man. She went back outside to her older son. A few moments later, a paramedic told her Evan was dead.

“I caressed his cheek and told him I was sorry,” she said.

Standing by the white casket holding the boy’s body, surrounded by nearly a dozen bouquets of flowers and photos of Evan, she and other mourners remembered him as a bright, industrious, caring, sweet boy who loved “being tucked in bed at night” and “the joy of laughter.” Father Ruett Foster called him precious.

“This loss has brought a great shock and pain and suffering,” the family’s pastor, John Colbert, said.

Some in the audience, he said, might be wondering about the death of a 7-year-old boy: “Why my beloved son, Evan?”

He answered: “This young boy who lived seven years touched thousands and thousands of people. . . . Because of this loss, many souls shall be won, many lives changed and the inner city . . . will begin to experience healing and deliverance like never before.”