5 Killed, 4 Injured in Spate of Shootings Around Southland

At least five people were killed and four were injured in several shootings in the Los Angeles area late Monday and Tuesday, authorities said.

In Watts, 17-year-old Luis Quinones was shot and killed late Monday in the courtyard of the Imperial Courts housing project, said Los Angeles Police homicide Det. John Zambos.

An unidentified 21-year-old man who was also shot was listed in critical condition at a hospital, police said.

Police said there were no suspects in the shooting and the motive was unknown.

About 1 a.m. Tuesday in Long Beach, police received a call about a shooting at a home near Long Beach Boulevard and 52nd Street, said Sgt. Steve Filipini of the Long Beach Police Department.

Joseph Marghella, 22, was found with a gunshot wound to the chest. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Filipini said Marghella had been visiting friends and that after the shooting, the assailant and several witnesses fled. The remaining witnesses were reluctant to give any information about “how and why the shooting occurred,” Filipini said.

About 3:20 a.m., the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department SWAT team and a crisis negotiation team went to a parking lot in South El Monte to investigate a report that a slaying suspect with a semiautomatic handgun was hiding under a vehicle, said Deputy Darren Harris.

The suspect, Martin Gonzales Velasquez, 39, at first refused to come out.

Authorities said Velasquez was the suspect in a 1:20 a.m. shooting behind Alice’s Palace bar near Garvey and Bruin avenues. A 40-year-old man was found dead at the scene and 34-year-old man, who had been shot in the arm, was taken to a hospital. Authorities did not release the victims’ names.

The suspect was arrested several hours later after deputies coaxed him out of the lot at Garvey Avenue, east of Rosemead Boulevard, Harris said.

In another shooting, a male between 16 and 19 years old was shot to death as he was walking along Broadway and Inglewood Boulevard in Hawthorne shortly after 9 a.m., said Sheriff’s Sgt. Brenda Cambra. Witnesses said the killer ran up behind the youth and fired several shots.

And in Inglewood on Tuesday, a man was killed and another man and a woman were wounded in a shooting about 6:15 p.m. in the 700 block of Stepney Place, a spokeswoman for the Inglewood Police Department said.

Police were searching the area late Tuesday night for at least two assailants who opened fire on the victims.