Death Toll Grows to 13 in Spate of Shootings; Some Victims Identified

Authorities Wednesday identified some of the 13 people shot to death in the Los Angeles area since Friday, as the death toll continued to grow.

Investigators have brief or no descriptions of the more than a dozen men involved in the 11 unrelated shootings. Nor have they determined the killers’ motives, although at least one shooting was gang-related and another appeared to be a robbery attempt.

The latest attack occurred Wednesday evening at East 8th and Wall streets in southeast Los Angeles when someone in a car opened fire on a man and a teenager before fleeing. The man was dead on arrival at the hospital, and the youth, 17, was in stable condition.

Two Los Angeles men, Julius James Jefferson, 20, and Eric Beverett, 21, were fatally wounded in a drive-by attack Friday outside a mini-mart in South Los Angeles. A stray bullet fired by the killers critically wounded a 62-year-old woman near 47th Street and Vermont Avenue.

On Saturday night, 48-year-old Roberto Chamale and his son were shot outside their apartment building on Dobbs Street near Cal State Los Angeles by someone who had asked their gang affiliation, police said. Chamale died.

A spate of eight shootings occurred Monday and Tuesday.

Drive-by shooters Monday night killed Ruby Ceasar, 54, of San Bernardino as she talked with a group at South Figueroa and 84th streets. Also shot was 41-year-old Derrick Brooks of Los Angeles, who died. The gunmen, in a white, Chevy Caprice, wounded three others.

On Tuesday morning, a 34-year-old father of two was killed while sitting in a car in the 140 block of 111th Place in southeast Los Angeles. The coroner identified him as Michael Anthony Gilmore, a local resident.

“We don’t even know why he was there,” said Los Angeles Police Det. Bill Smith. “We’re at the beginning stages of this. Right now, it’s real sketchy.”

David George Drew, 47, of Compton has been identified as the man found shot outside a Carson grocery store. He was killed at 8:20p.m. Monday near the loading dock of Notrica’s Supermarket on South Avalon Boulevard.

Police also are continuing their search for the two men who killed 20-year-old Ruben Atilano, a reputed Boyle Heights gang member who was shot Monday evening while warming up his car in front of his home in the 500 block of Brittania Street.

Det. Scott Smith said investigators have interviewed several witnesses, all of whom were reluctant to give detailed descriptions of the gunmen.

Officials believe that the shooters were members of a rival gang and that Atilano’s death was the continuation of an ongoing turf war.

Still at large are three men, all ages 20 to 25, who had been chasing others when they killed a 42-year-old man standing in the 1200 block of South Lake Street on Tuesday, police said. The killers drove a blue Chevy Suburban.

Officials are withholding the man’s name until his family is notified, Det. John Motto said.

A 38-year-old man who died of multiple gunshot wounds on a Compton sidewalk was apparently the victim of a robbery attempt, police said. He was found at 3:30a.m. Tuesday in the 500 block of Matthisen Avenue. Police have no suspects, and withheld his name until they could notify his family.

Inglewood police are hoping for tips from the public regarding the fatal shooting Monday of Leo B. Payne III, 25, in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven at Centinela and Eucalyptus avenues.

Officials still have no suspects in the shooting of Javier Ibarra, 18, who was killed while walking in the 1700 block of West 96th Street.