2 are sought in girl’s slaying

Police are searching for two armed teenagers in connection with the fatal shooting of an 8-year-old girl in South Los Angeles.

Jasmine Sanders was shot about 8:45 p.m. Wednesday as she was playing with her younger brother and other children behind an iron gate near the stairwell of an apartment building, relatives and police said.

Her mother, Shadonna Kinney, 28, who tried to revive her daughter after she was shot, stood near the crime scene Thursday morning, beseeching the shooters to turn themselves in.

“You senseless guys, do the right thing: Come forward, come forward, come forward,” Kinney said, breaking into tears. “She didn’t deserve this. . . . She didn’t deserve this.”

The attack at East 76th and South San Pedro streets occurred as Jasmine played among a crowd of people on the front steps of the building, where she had lived with her mother and two brothers for three weeks, police and residents said. She was wearing a white shirt at the time and was clearly visible to the shooters, witnesses said.

Witnesses told police that two teenage boys approached the crowd from a nearby alley and that one of them, dressed in a white shirt and dark pants, fired a round at a group of male youths standing behind the stairs.

Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said the shooter was armed with a rifle and “fired one shot toward the group of people and hit the child in the chest.”

Investigators were searching for the rifle, Officer Kate Lopez said.

Witnesses said the force of the shot pushed Jasmine back against the stairs, where her mother came down and picked her up. Kinney carried her upstairs to their apartment, where she and a neighbor applied pressure to the chest wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

Jasmine was pronounced dead at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, police said.

Capt. Dennis Kato said the shooters ran off down a nearby alley.

Lopez said the shooting was gang-related.

The corner where the attack occurred is near the LAPD’s 77th Street Division station.

After the shooting, scores of police officers cordoned off the area and began searching for the assailants and interviewing witnesses.

Residents at the apartment complex say Wednesday’s incident marked the fifth shooting there in the last week. They pointed out bullets from recent shootings still lodged in the gate.

Kinney said her daughter, a student at nearby 75th Street Elementary School, was focused on her studies. When she was fighting with her brothers, trying to get them to behave, she would say: “You better listen to Mama. I’m getting my education.”

Jasmine’s relatives urged witnesses to contact detectives.

“Somebody saw something,” said Kinney’s uncle, Jermain Hockless, 33.

Anyone with information is asked to call police at (800) 529-3855.

--

ruben.vives@latimes.com

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com