Rash of Slayings Alarms an L.A. Neighborhood

Two more men were shot before sunrise Wednesday in a section of South-Central Los Angeles where there have been at least 12 shooting incidents and eight homicides in a week.

Police say some of the havoc is the result of a turf war between two small bands of the Crips gang, though most of the incidents appear unrelated.

“This is reminiscent of the kinds of activity we were seeing in the early ‘90s,” said Los Angeles Police Capt. Charlie Beck.

The spate of violence began with two slayings May 17 and surged the next day when four people were gunned down--three within 35 minutes. The next night a family fight left a man dead after a shoving match. And late Tuesday, a 44-year-old man was wounded during a drive-by on South Vermont Avenue, while another was shot hours later during a burglary in front of his home.

The incidents have mostly occurred in the LAPD’s Southeast Division near Watts, shattering a period of relative calm in a community long sick of violence. Some activists complain that the killing is unduly ignored by the outside world.

“This is a little war going on in a six- or eight-square-mile area,” said Timothy Watkins, youth director for the Watts Labor Community Action Committee. “There should be a public outcry.”

Watkins said many residents are afraid to leave their homes, and he thinks authorities have adopted a defeatist stance that “when the shooting stops, we’ll just pick up the bodies.”

“The kind of grief counseling that other communities see when they experience this kind of thing is painfully absent here,” he said.

Police say the shooting spurt ended a four-week lull in gang activity. Now homicides in the area are 11% higher than at this time last year, though far lower than the 10-year average. Beck said that for all of 1999, there were 57 slayings in the area, down from 141 at a peak year almost a decade ago.

But he stressed that this week’s gunfire surpassed the usual up-and-down cycles of gang warfare. “This is significant,” he said. “It’s gone beyond the usual variation.”

Beck discounted a theory raised by some officers that the upsurge was the result of the LAPD’s CRASH anti-gang units being disbanded because of the Rampart scandal. “I think some people would like to say that,” he said. “It’s kind of self-serving.”

He said there is little police can do to prevent the attacks and retaliations once gang members set their minds to it.

This is how the violence unfolded:

* Wednesday, May 17--Corinthian Diggs, 29, was walking near a McDonald’s parking lot at 101 W. Manchester Ave. just after noon when a suspect rode up on a bicycle and opened fire, striking him in the torso. Diggs ran across the street to a store and collapsed on the floor, then was taken to a hospital, where he died. The incident was probably gang-related, police said.

That night, a 21-year-old named Marvin Johnson III was standing with some friends at 104th Street and South Clovis Avenue when a man leaned out of a passing car and fired. Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene, while four others were injured and taken to area hospitals. This was a gang-related incident that would prompt the next two shootings, police said.

* Thursday, May 18--At 8:50 a.m., Deangelo Anderson, 17, was standing in front of his apartment complex on South Avalon Boulevard near 109th Street. Police say gang members mistook him for a rival and shot him from a passing car, killing him.

At 9 p.m., Dennis Evans, 22, and a friend were arguing with a man in the Imperial Courts housing project, when the man shot and killed him. Beck said the attack was in retaliation for the death of Anderson.

Ten minutes later, another victim was wounded in a shooting on Century Boulevard.

Then at 9:20 p.m., Kirk Alfred, 45, was riding a bike with a friend in the 800 block of West 94th Street when a suspect drove by and shot him to death. The incident was apparently gang-related, said Lt. Joel Justice.

About 15 minutes later, violence erupted again, this time at 117th and Main streets. DeBoris Price, 30, was killed by bullets fired from a passing car as he walked with friends.

* Friday, May 19--At night, a man confronted his ex-wife in front of her relatives at her house. One of the relatives pushed him down, and he struck his head on a concrete porch and died, said Det. Sal LaBarbera.

* Monday, May 22--A 13-year-old boy and 17-year-old girl were wounded at night during a gang-related drive-by shooting on 108th Street and South Broadway.

A man was fatally shot in the head outside a liquor store on West Imperial Highway near South New Hampshire Avenue. His friend was wounded and taken to a local hospital, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

* Tuesday, May 23--A man was shot by rival gang members at 112th and South Figueroa streets. That night, a 44-year-old man was wounded in a drive-by shooting in the 10500 block of South Vermont Avenue.

* Wednesday, May 24--At 4:50 a.m. a 35-year-old man heard what sounded like someone breaking into his car and ran out of his home on South Avalon Boulevard to investigate. He was shot in the chest, arm, leg and hand and taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition.

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Shooting Scenes

At least 12 shootings have been reported to law enforcement agencies in a small area in South-Central in the past week, some of them resulting in fatalities.

1. Manchester Ave. and Main St.

2. Avalon Blvd. and 87th Pl.

3. Vermont Ave. and 94th St.

4. Vermont Ave. and 105th St.

5. Imperial Hwy. and New Hampshire Ave.

6. Figueroa St. and 112th St.

7. Broadway and 108th St.

8. Century Blvd. and McKinley Ave.

9. Avalon Blvd. and 109th St.

10. Main St. and 117th St.

11. Clovis Ave. and 104th St.

12. 114th St. and Gorman Ave. (Imperial Courts)