Thread: LOS ANGELES WARZONE ERUPTS IN GUNFIRE TODAY

1 suspect killed after L.A. officers are fired upon by AK-47



Los Angeles Police Department SWAT officers continue to search door to door Thursday at scene of fatal shoot out.

Another suspect is wounded and two others remain at large. No officers were injured.
By Richard Winton, Susannah Rosenblatt and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

4:31 PM PST, February 21, 2008

Los Angeles police shot and killed one man and wounded another after a wild incident in northeast Los Angeles that began with a drive-by shooting that threatened a toddler and culminated with suspects firing on officers with an AK-47 rifle, officials said.

Two suspects remained at large, and the neighborhood, including several schools, was still on lockdown hours after the initial shooting took place shortly before noon.

One suspect is believed to be barricaded inside an apartment building, police said. By late afternoon, officers using police dogs began going door to door in search of the man. Another suspect apparently fled the area in a vehicle, officials said.

The assault on police took place after officers attempted to stop a car similar to one involved in a drive-by shooting that took place about 10 minutes earlier, police said. In that incident, a shooter or shooters fired more than a dozen rounds at a man carrying a 2-year old child, police said. The victim in that shooting was critically injured and taken to a hospital. The child also was taken to the hospital but was not wounded, authorities said.

After leaving the scene of the drive-by, people in the car began firing their weapons indiscriminately, said LAPD Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz.

Plainclothes officers in the area near the intersection of Drew Street and Estara Avenue heard the gunfire and tried to stop the car. Three of the men in the car jumped out of the vehicle with weapons and fired on officers, Diaz said. The officers then returned gunfire, fatally shooting one suspect and seriously wounding another, he said.

"One of the suspects opened fire on the officers with an AK-47," said Cmdr. Andrew Smith, supervisor of the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Bureau, which includes the area where the incident occurred.

No officers were injured in the attack, police said.

Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell said plainclothes officers in the area had gone to the location, which he described as a base of operations for Avenues gang members, because they believed that possible suspects in the drive-by shooting would soon return.

"There's been a rash, an uptick, of shootings in the past few weeks," McDonnell said of the neighborhood, which is just north of the junction of the Golden State and Glendale freeways and densely packed with apartment buildings, small bungalows and warehouses.

Within minutes of reports of officers being shot at, a massive police presence had descended on the area. Los Angeles SWAT officers were in position by 1 p.m., authorities said. The location is only a few blocks from the LAPD's Northeast Station on San Fernando Road.

More than four hours after the confrontation began, a body covered by a white sheet was still visible in the street. Neighbors hung out in frontyards and looked down from balconies on the scene, some snapping photographs.

Police said they had recovered at least one handgun at the scene, in addition to the assault weapon.

Earlier, police officials said that people in two vehicles had fired at each other while driving, but authorities later said that all four male suspects were traveling in the same car.

Residents said they heard multiple gunshots earlier in the day. They said one home in the area had been a subject of frequent police activity. On Wednesday night, one neighbor said, police officers went to that house. Then, he said, there were more problems today.

The 35-year old man, who lives in the apartment building next to house and asked not to be named because of fear of reprisals, said he first heard shots today about noon.

"It's been happening since last night," he said. "It's been getting worse and worse every single day -- bad the last two years."

He said that when he heard the gunfire today he took cover in his apartment.

"Everybody gets scared when you hear shots," he said. "Everybody gets down."

Juan Soto, who also lives in the block, said violence there had grown common.

"This kind of incident happens about once a month," said Soto, 31. "This is not the first time."

Others said the shootout and police activity had unnerved them. Several dozen residents were evacuated from their homes by police and stood waiting under a nearby carport. Several schools -- Aragon Elementary, Cal Charter, Fletcher Elementary and Washington Irving Middle School -- were on lockdown after the shootings, authorities said.

Norma Rodriguez, 45, said she was turned back when she tried to pick up her son from Fletcher Elementary School.

"We can't go anywhere," said Rodriguez, who lives in Eagle Rock and works as a private care giver. "I'm worried. Right now at this point, I know he's inside the school, but I don't want him to be scared. There are police cars everywhere."



http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 8361.story

The Avenues gang's long, violent history


By Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 22, 2008

The Avenues gang is named for the avenues that cross Figueroa Street in northeast Los Angeles, where the gang claims Highland Park and parts of Cypress Park, Glassell Park and Eagle Rock as its turf.

The group, which is linked to the Mexican Mafia prison gang, has a violent history of shootings and killings dating from at least the 1950s.

The Avenues gained national attention in 1995 when several members opened fire on a car that made a wrong turn into a Cypress Park alley, killing 3-year-old Stephanie Kuhen.

In 2006, four members of the gang were convicted of violating federal hate crime laws through a series of chilling assaults and killings aimed at driving African Americans from the predominantly Latino community.

Among the crimes committed by the Avenues from 1995 to 2001, according to trial testimony: shooting a 15-year-old boy riding a bike; kicking open the door of a 21-year-old man's home and fatally shooting him in the head as he lay on a futon; hitting a jogger in the head with a pistol; drawing outlines of human bodies in chalk on a family's driveway, along with a racial slur; and knocking a woman off her bike and threatening her husband with a box cutter.

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 4783.story

USANevada.....more ammunition for the class action case of the "Invasion"....

We are behind you on this class action suit....just let us know what we need to do....

Many cities in CA are more deadly to Americans than Iraq.

Hi Skip. Thank you for the story and the great pictures as usual. Hope that you are doing well.

Ephesians 4:32

Feb 21, 2008 9:39 pm US/Pacific

2 Dead After Glassell Park Gun Battle

LOS ANGELES Officers fatally shot an armed suspect and wounded another in a gun battle near Glassell Park Thursday, just minutes after a gang-related drive-by shooting that fatally wounded a man carrying a 2-year-old girl.

The girl was not shot, but did suffer bruises after being dropped. The man carrying the toddler sustained as many as 15 gunshot wounds and died later at a hospital.

The shooting happened just after noon at Estara Avenue and Drew Street, Officer Kate Lopez said. No officers were injured.

"What we do know is that three suspects exited that car -- all three with firearms," Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz said. "At least two of them fired at the officers, possibly three fired at the officers.

"The officers fired back, striking two of the suspects. One expired at the scene. One was wounded and has been transported to a local hospital. Another, we're told, fled on foot, and we believe the driver fled in his vehicle."

According to police, gang violence has erupted in the area in the past month, prompting additional resources to be assigned to the area.

"Just before noon today, there was a shooting about 10 to 15 blocks from here," LAPD Assistant Chief Jim McDonald said. "At that location, there was a man walking down the street carrying a 2-year-old child. The suspects in this vehicle drove by -- we believe it was this vehicle -- drove by, shot the victim in this case a number of times. The victim went down at the scene, dropped the baby. Someone else came along and picked up the baby."

The baby girl was later found at a hospital, police said, and the man who was shot died later at a hospital.

"The vehicle then left that area and went around the corner and engaged in a shooting with another vehicle. We are still looking for further information on that shooting," McDonald said.

According to Chief William Bratton, officers assigned to the area came by anticipating the suspects would return to the neighborhood, which he called the "heart and soul of the Avenues gang."

McDonald said the suspects did return.

"The officers then encountered the suspects. The suspects ... got out of the vehicle, immediately opened fire on the police car and the officers," McDonald said.

Police said the officers returned fire, killing one suspect. A second suspect fired at officers as he ran from the area. Police shot that suspect, who survived and was taken to a hospital.

A third suspect ran from the scene, and was believed to have barricaded himself in an apartment building in the area. He was arrested shortly after 5 p.m.

A fourth suspect, the vehicle's driver, left the scene and was still being sought.

"Fortunately our officers are the ones left standing after that shooting," Bratton said.

Fletcher Drive School and Washington Irving Middle School were locked down as police searched for the suspect that remained at large.

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