3 Drive-By Shootings Kill 3 Over the Weekend

crime At least three were killed and two injured after separate weekend shootings in the areas of Boyle Heights, Exposition Park and Historic Filipinotown.

The most recent was yesterday afternoon around 4:20 p.m. on the 120 block of Westmoreland Avenue near Historic Filipintotown, a few blocks southeast of the Vermont/Beverly Metro Red Line station. 19-year-old Edward Ruacho was sitting with friends on the front porch of their apartment complex when a black Ford Explorer with tinted windows drove up to the front of the building and stopped momentarily before a suspect shot several rounds into Rancho, ultimately killing him, according to the LAPD.

A few hours earlier around 1:45 p.m., two men who police say are not gang members were standing on the corner of East 38th Street and Griffith Avenue when a car pulled up and the occupants asked them where they were from, a usual precursor to a gang shooting. "We're not from anywhere," the men responded before being shot in the legs. They were taken to the hospital in stable condition, according to the LA Times.

Two were killed in Boyle Heights around midnight on Saturday. A 20-year-old man who got out his car to open his garage on the 500 block of South Saint Louis Street was shot in the chest by someone driving by in a black Cadillac drove. Then, the victim's companion was shot in the head by someone in another car driving by. Police say they are gang related and connected.

Photo by CarbonNYC via Flickr