Violence Strikes Guardians and the Innocent

A Pico-Union mother was caught in gang cross-fire and killed Friday when one group of armed youths opened fire on another outside her home, police said.

Authorities said the woman’s son was among those who were targeted in the 4 p.m. attack near the corner of 15th Street and Magnolia Avenue. Los Angeles Police Lt. Dan Hills said the son was standing on the sidewalk with a group of gang members outside the chain-link fence surrounding his mother’s front yard when a rival gang massed on the other side of the street. The two groups began shooting at each other.

The mother, Hills said, ran to a window when she heard the commotion and was struck in the upper body by a stray bullet. Authorities withheld the woman’s name pending notification of relatives. She was pronounced dead on arrival at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

“Porque? Porque?” sobbed Araceli Rodriguez, a woman who identified herself as the victim’s niece. “This is just too much,” she added in Spanish as a crowd milled around the police tape that cordoned off the house.

Meanwhile, a young man in a flannel shirt and baggy pants cursed and screamed at passing cars and slammed the window of a television news van.

“She has not died!” he shouted in Spanish, leaning into Rodriguez’s face and vowing to keep the woman’s memory alive on the streets of Los Angeles.

Authorities and witnesses said it was unclear what set off the melee in the neighborhood of working-class Latino immigrants. Hills noted that the area has had a drop-off in criminal activity in recent months, but that gangs continue to compete viciously for drug turf.

Rodriguez, the niece, said that no one in the victim’s house was affiliated with gangs or drugs, adding that the woman who died was a church-going Christian.

Neighbors, however, said that the woman’s son, who is in his 20s, had been affiliated with the Drifters, a neighborhood gang that they said has dueled with the 18th Street gang and another group known as the Easy Riders.

Police said the son--who was taken in for questioning--was standing with five to 10 young men when a similarly size group of rivals ran up the block toward the house.

Mike Valdez Renteria, a neighbor, said he knew there would be trouble when he saw the mob swarm past.

“I saw them running, and all of them had weapons. I didn’t say anything or whistle because I didn’t want to get killed,” he said.

Moments later, police said, the gunfire erupted, with as many as 20 shots exchanged before the two groups scattered and fled.

Police said one of the medium-caliber bullets apparently struck the woman as she stood in a front window, watching the melee. Neighbors, who refused to be identified, said she had emigrated to this country from Mexico, and said she was likable and quiet. One young man said she was “like a second mother” to him.

Down the block, residents decried the shooting, saying that violence and gang intimidation had become a fact of their lives.

“I ran away from my country because of shotguns and people trying to kill me. And I come here and it’s almost the same,” said Hector Lemus, 28, a Guatemalan immigrant who works at a nearby gas station.

“I think I’m going to move,” he added. “It’s very dangerous here.”

Times staff writer Shawn Hubler contributed to this story.