Boy, 15, Shot Outside School in Glendale

A 15-year-old boy was shot and critically wounded during a gang fight outside Herbert Hoover High School late Thursday afternoon, police said.

A tennis match was being played and about 55 students were on campus at the time of the shooting, but there were no other injuries, police said.

A fistfight between two Armenian gangs that began in the faculty parking lot erupted into gunfire on a nearby street after one of the youths pulled a firearm out of his car, Sgt. Rick Young of the Glendale Police Department said.

The boy, identified by police as Avetis “Avo” Demerchyan, a Hoover High junior, was hit in the stomach and transported to Los Angeles County USC Medical Center, where he underwent surgery and was listed in critical condition Thursday night.

Police said several Hoover High boys got into an argument with Avetis during lunch and ordered him to meet them after school “to talk.”

The shooting came only a week after classes started at Hoover High and a day after students attended a lengthy orientation on school rules and regulations concerning everything from campus drug and alcohol bans to gun prohibitions.

“This is frightening--this is a sad statement about society,” said Co-Principal Kevin E. Welsh. “I feel we have a very safe school, but obviously a parent hearing something like this is going to panic.”

Welsh said Hoover High School had recently joined a growing number of Los Angeles County campuses employing metal detectors and random locker checks to control youth violence.

Glendale authorities said Thursday’s shooting was the city’s closest to a school.

The fight began in the middle of a tennis match between Hoover High and Village Christian School from Sun Valley. At the sound of the shots, players and fans hit the ground. The competition was postponed.

Although Glendale remains one of Southern California’s safest communities, gang violence in the area has been escalating in recent months, police said.

“Six months ago the fistfights turned into gunshots,” Glendale police spokesman Chahe Keurojhelian said.

Two Latino gangs whose territories run along the Burbank-Glendale city line have been trading retaliatory drive-by shootings since March, Keurojhelian said. Three youths have been injured.

In response, Glendale police say they are taking a harder line against gang members.

Young said the two gangs involved in Thursday’s shooting were probably Armenian, and that their dispute had nothing to do with the intercity rivalry.

Authorities said the fight began in the faculty parking lot south of the tennis courts and spilled onto School Street. One boy had a black eye, and another ran to a red Astro van, pulled out a gun and started firing from the window, police said.

Avetis’ friends loaded him into their car and were driving on Glenoaks Boulevard to Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center when a motorcycle officer flagged them down for speeding and called paramedics, authorities said.

Keurojhelian said police have detained several witnesses, including the occupants of a minivan and BMW “who may turn out to be suspects.” Investigators were interrogating several youths late Thursday.