2 Shootings Are Reprisals for Gang Slaying, Chief Says

Two weekend shootings in Santa Monica--one of which claimed the life of a city employee--were retaliations for the death last week of a Culver City gang member, police said Monday.

The gang member, Omar Sevilla, 22, was slain Oct. 12 near Santa Monica High School.

Police said they believe gang retaliation for Sevilla’s death was the motive in the killing of a 28-year-old city employee, Juan Martin Campos, on Saturday and an attack that wounded 25-year-old Javier Cruz on Sunday outside his home.

“We consider the situation to be very serious,” Police Chief James T. Butts Jr. said at a news conference Monday.

Butts said investigators see “absolutely no link” between the apparently gang-related shootings and the killing of tourist Horst Fietze on Oct. 12.

The 50-year-old from Loebau, Germany, was shot during a nighttime walk with his wife and another couple near the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. The crime drew international attention to a city that had only one murder last year and where police say violence has been decreasing in the last few years.

Campos, an employee of the city’s public works department, died Saturday after he was chased into a Pico Boulevard liquor store Saturday afternoon and shot several times in front of witnesses. The gunman fled in a waiting car.

Campos was once a gang member, police said, but whether he was still active in a gang was unclear.

Police have no suspects in the case.

Cruz, a 25-year-old Santa Monica resident who is believed to be a former gang member, was in stable condition at a local hospital Monday after being shot in the back Sunday night as he was getting into his car near 17th Street and Michigan Avenue.

Officers said they arrested two Culver City men, Marcos Camarillo, 19, and Alex Acuna, 18, on suspicion of shooting Cruz. The suspects had an assault rifle, machine pistol and revolver with them at the time of their arrest, police said.

The suspects were booked on suspicion of attempted murder and were being held in lieu of $1-million bail.