Girl Killed, Friend Hurt in Apparent Gang Violence

Police said Thursday that an 11-year-old girl was shot to death and her 11-year-old friend was wounded in an incident that bore the markings of gang violence.

Relatives identified the victim of the Wednesday night shooting as Leslie Zepeda, a lifelong resident of the neighborhood of small homes and apartments southeast of the Century and San Diego freeways.

The shooting injured Kenya Salinas, whose two wounds were called light “grazes” by authorities.

Hawthorne police described the girls as innocent victims of what was probably gang cross-fire. The two girls, returning from a grocery store, had been sitting in a pickup waiting for the unidentified driver to get a Christmas gift from an apartment.

Neighbors said shootings in the neighborhood are common, and noted that three young men were wounded by gunfire a few nights before.

Some neighbors described the shooting as the latest in a yearlong series of battles between the Lennox 13 and Eucalyptus gangs. Hawthorne police investigators said both gangs are active in the neighborhood, but could not confirm whether they were involved in the shooting.

Hawthorne Police Lt. Dennis Barberic said neighbors reported hearing six shots fired about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

A neighbor, Osvaldo Carrera, said he was outside talking with some friends when two young men chased another around the corner, first in a car, and then, after encountering a construction barricade, on foot.

Suddenly, he said, the two opened fire on the young man they were chasing. He escaped unscathed, Carrera said, but the two girls were hit.

“I went over to try to help the girls,” he said. But by the time paramedics arrived a few minutes later Leslie had lost consciousness, he said.

Another neighbor, Brett Loranger, said he has been trying to form a neighborhood crime-fighting organization on the street. He called conditions appalling and said he was afraid for the safety of his own two children.

Police said that as of Thursday they had no identified suspects in the killing.