Westside Gang Sweep Results in 8 Arrests

In an unusually heavy sweep aimed at a single gang, 150 Los Angeles police officers raided 21 locations early Thursday to crack down on the Culver City Boys, a Westside gang that has been involved in years of deadly conflict with a gang in Venice.

Police arrested eight alleged gang members on suspicion of selling rock cocaine and for outstanding warrants, said Det. Pete Waack of the department’s Pacific Division.

Searches resulted in the seizure of four handguns, one rifle, 20 to 25 rocks of cocaine, several thousand dollars in cash, several hundred rounds of ammunition, radio-frequency scanners and cellular telephones suspected of having being stolen or cloned.

“Any time we can get eight gang members, five guns and some rock cocaine off the street, we count that as a success,” Waack said

Police also confiscated about five boxes worth of letters, notebooks and other documents that may provide evidence in eight 1997 murders that police believe were committed by members of the Culver City Boys, Waack said.

“We were looking for things to corroborate evidence we already had, to help solve these murders,” Waack said.

Last year’s wave of murders began with the fatal shooting of Miguel Sanchez at a pay phone in Mar Vista. It ended when Richard Martin, who was not a gang member, was shot to death Dec. 19 while delivering Christmas presents to his fiancee’s house.

The Pacific Division counted 12 gang-related murders in 1997.

The Culver City Boys are thought be responsible for eight of those. Members of a rival gang, the Venice Shoreline Crips, are suspected of committing three, Waack said.

Suspects’ names were not immediately released.

The four-hour operation, which began at 7 a.m., primarily targeted residences in the Mar Vista area where members of the Culver City Boys are known to live.

Waack said Thursday’s sweep was the biggest action of its kind in the Pacific Division since 1993.