Girl, 6, Dies After Shots Are Fired in Busy Intersection

A 6-year-old girl riding in the back seat of her uncle’s station wagon was killed Tuesday by an apparent gang member who fired into late afternoon traffic at a busy Hollywood intersection, police said.

An intense search of the area near Melrose and Vermont avenues turned up a man police described as a possible suspect. He was being questioned late Tuesday as investigators searched his house, about six blocks from the scene of the attack.

Authorities said Corrina Gomez was in the back seat of her uncle’s compact station wagon as it approached the intersection at 4 p.m.

According to witnesses, three young men were standing at a gasoline station at the southwest corner of the intersection. Police said at least one of them drew a handgun and began firing into the street, apparently at rival gang members in another car.

Police said the gunman fired as many as 15 bullets at northbound cars. One struck a red hatchback about six inches below the rear window, but no one in that car was hurt. And one pierced a window on the rear driver’s side door of the station wagon, striking Gomez in the head. Her uncle and two young cousins, also in the car, were unhurt.

For a moment, her uncle thought his rear tire had blown out. But when he turned around, he saw blood in the back seat, police said. He immediately pulled into a strip mall on Vermont just north of the intersection and cried out for help.

He managed to carry his wounded niece to the door of a fast-food restaurant in the strip mall.

“When I came out, I saw a little girl lying in [his] arms,” said Andrew Lee, a restaurant employee. “She was in really bad shape.”

Lee said a customer in the restaurant called 911 on a cellular phone, then rushed the uncle and niece into his own car to drive them to a nearby hospital. The girl was later transferred to Childrens Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 6:23 p.m.

Police and combed several blocks with a K-9 unit, a SWAT team, a helicopter and scores of officers.

As the K-9 unit approached one house about six blocks from the scene, a young man emerged to secure his dog, police said. Officers said the man matched the suspect’s description, and took him into custody. Police refused to release his identity late Tuesday.

“Traveling through a major thoroughfare in the middle of the day, you’d think people would be safe,” said LAPD spokesman Lt. Anthony Alba. “There’s far too much violence in the city.”