Man Is Critical After Panorama City Shootings

The last time Luisa Becerra saw her son Miguel, a tall, slender young man who works at a local construction company and likes partying at dance clubs, he was heading out Friday night with a girl.

“I told him to be careful,” Becerra, a North Hollywood mother of three, said in Spanish on Saturday. “I didn’t want anything to happen to them.”

Saturday her 20-year-old-son was in critical condition at a local hospital, fighting for his life after surgery for being shot three times in the stomach, back and hip.

“He squeezed my hand and said he wanted water,” said his father, Margarito, also speaking Spanish. “I don’t care who did it. I just want my son to recuperate.”

Becerra and three others were shot Friday night as they sat in his green Honda Accord, parked near the Sepulveda Recreation Center in Panorama City, police said. Carlos Christian Mejia, 18, of North Hollywood died at the scene in the 8800 block of Kester Avenue.

Two teenage girls in the car suffered minor graze wounds but were able to run to a nearby house after the attack, said Officer Guillermo Campos, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. Another girl escaped harm.

The shooting appears to have been gang-related, police said. But detectives have not determined whether any of the victims had gang ties.

Luisa Becerra said her son has never been involved with gangs. But Miguel’s sister said she was worried about her brother, saying he had recently broken up with a longtime girlfriend and started hanging out with a new group of friends.

“I told him to stay away from those people. They have a bad reputation,” said Barbara Becerra, 22, of Burbank. “He didn’t listen.”

Police described an abrupt attack on the group of five young people in a crime-ridden area that has experienced three gang-related slayings in recent weeks.

Several men pulled up in a dark-colored car and one got out, shouted some sort of challenge, and opened fire directly into the car, police said.

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Sgt. Robert Davis of the LAPD’s Devonshire division said Friday that the assailant had asked whether the victims were gang members, and when they replied no, he shot them.

No arrests have been made in the attack, which came moments after a man was injured in a drive-by shooting six blocks away. Detectives are investigating whether the same people committed both crimes.

The violence began about 9:20 p.m. in North Hills, when Jose Islas, 37, was shot in the leg as he left his apartment in the 9000 block of Columbus Avenue, police said.

Islas, the apartment manager, was not the intended victim but was hit when someone fired from a car at a group of people loitering nearby, Davis said.

Meanwhile, the spate of shootings in the Northeast Valley continued Saturday afternoon, as a gun battle erupted between two cars racing down a Pacoima street past a crowded park filled with children, police said.

“Witnesses said they were driving down the street shooting [at each other],” said Lt. Lee Allen of the LAPD’s Foothill division.

Two people involved in the fight, described as men in their 20s, were shot inside their brown Ford Taurus as they sped north on Laurel Canyon Boulevard near Ritchie Valens Park, Allen said. As their car drifted to a stop near the Ronald Reagan Freeway, their rivals sped off in a blue Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

“The victims’ car was hit at least 12 times,” Allen said. “They just peppered the car with bullets.”

One man was shot at least twice in the chest and taken to a local hospital, where he was in critical condition, police said. The other victim was in serious condition with a gunshot wound to the shoulder.

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The violence follows a sharp increase in gang-related killings citywide. In the Valley, three young men died last month in separate Panorama City shootings that police believe stemmed from a gang feud between the Bloods and the Crips.

Police have no indication that those killings are linked to the most recent shootings, Campos said.

At the Sepulveda Recreation Center on Saturday, there were no overt reminders of Friday night’s violence, as young men knocked a soccer ball around, street vendors sold snacks and groups of youths with shaved heads lounged in the shade of a tree.

A sister and brother, who were sitting on the bleachers near the baseball diamond and reading, said they have grown accustomed to hearing gunfire and police helicopters at night in their neighborhood.

“You don’t really know what’s going on. You just stay in your house. You wonder, ‘Did somebody get shot?’ ” said Johanna Escalante, 21, of North Hills. “It’s scary because you really can’t go out on the streets, even if you want to go to the store.”

Her 16-year-old brother, Steve, said he’s careful when he walks outside at night. “It’s kind of freaky,” he said. “Any car could pass by, and you could get shot in the head.”