Results tagged “gunfire”

Students in LAUSD schools in Highland Park are already under a lot of pressure to do well, from test scores to less-than-ideal classroom environments. But the neighborhood is experiencing an increase in gang-related violence, mostly via gunfire, and that is making getting an education even harder, explains the LA Times' Steve Lopez.

An 8-year-old girl remains listed in stable condition at Children's Hospital today after she was "wounded in crossfire during a shootout between LAPD narcotics officers and three suspects," according to the Daily News. The child "was struck in the chest and suffered a bruised lung," when officers returned fire on suspects who shot at them from inside a black 1998 four-door Toyota police had followed into an alley in the North University Park area around 7 last night. Because the girl was "behind police officers during the altercation," early reports indicate she was "wounded by shots fired by the suspects toward police." The unnamed victim had reportedly asked her older sibling if she could play outside just a few more minutes when the incident took place. She is expected to survive.

Police across the region are telling people not to shoot guns into the air on New Year's Eve. "What goes up inevitably is going to come down, and it comes down at a velocity that can quite easily penetrate buildings, car roofs and human beings," LAPD Chief William Bratton said at a news conference yesterday.

Guns and cars are in the headlines this morning thanks to several Southland crimes last night that are being investigated in the morning light. First, in East L.A., a large house party was held last night on the 500 block of South Hoefner. It had been promoted by fliers and handouts all over. But in the midnight hour things turned deadly when a suspect opened fire with a handgun, striking 18-year-old Jeffrey Alvarado "in the upper body and wounding two others -- one man in the arm, the other man in the leg," according to cbs2.com.