Results tagged “homicide” from Crime Scene

By some estimates there are as many as 400 members of the Denver Lanes street gang living in Pasadena.

A blood gang that probably originated in Los Angeles, PDL is often responsible for much of the violence that occurs in Northwest Pasadena.

Needless to say, the streets, apartments and housing projects PDL claims as its turf don't often make New Year's Day television broadcasts highlighting the wonders of the Rose City.

Neither does much of the rest of the city north of the 210 Freeway for that matter. Where turf is claimed by gangs like the Pasadena Latin Kings, the Raymond Avenue Crips, Northside Pasadena, the Villa Boyz, Varrio Pasadena Rifa, the Summit Street Smokers, Pepper Street, Squiggly Lane and the Project Gangsters.

Some wear red like the Bloods. Some wear blue like the Crips. Others, like the Project Gangsters, simply wear black.

On a summer day in the Northwest, families sweltering in cramped apartments seek refuge on rickety balconies. A cop drives by in an unmarked car and gets mad-dogged by an old woman who mouths obscenities before flipping the bird.

Down the road on Orange Grove Boulevard, the passenger in a car traveling the opposite direction hangs out the window and contorts his hand into an unmistakable gang sign.

On Howard Street, a group of young men shoot craps as they banter with the cop about the neighborhood.

Outside a Washington Boulevard apartment complex, a guy once named in an

On another street the cop points out the luxury Lexus that belongs to the PDL's shot-caller. Near Robinson Road, he points out a yellow mansion with exterior spiral staircases and white trim. It's surrounded by a 6-foot-high, wrought-iron fence.

"They shoot pornos there," he says. "Or at least they used to."

Up on Woodbury, the detective talks to a young girl about her family. She says many of her relatives are unavailable. But, "They'll be back in a minute."

Elsewhere drug deals go down in alleyways and driveways. The sight of a white, unmarked patrol car sends the actors scurrying in various directions.

Up the road, a "basehead" looks lost standing outside an abandoned house. A couple of doors down three generations of a family that's well-known to cops in Northwest Pasadena gathers on their front lawn and driveway.

Most everywhere the detective gets stares and dirty looks.

Somehow the neighborhood has been a breeding ground for violence and bad behavior for as long as most remember. This is where gangs like PDL thrive.

"The gangs are constantly struggling for power in the community," Pasadena police Detective Kevin Gomez recently explained in a preliminary hearing for Dwayne Rice and Charles Wetstone, a pair of PDLs accused in the execution murder of Squiggly Lane rival David Crosby.

"The larger the territory, the more opportunities for the gang," he continued.

While local public officials continue to deny the existence of brown on black hate crime, the FBI cracked down on a Hawaiian Gardens gang responsible for several heinous crimes.

From the Associated Press:

Federal and local agencies were conducting a series of arrests targeting members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens street gang, U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Thom Mrozek said.

A series of federal racketeering indictments was due to be unsealed later Thursday, detailing firearms, narcotics and other charges related to the attacks, Mrozek said.

Further details were not released, but Mrozek said the indictments would detail the attacks on several black victims.

The indictments mark at least the second time in less than two years that federal authorities have alleged that Latino gang members attacked black residents because of their race. Local officials have tried to downplay any racial tensions.

Recently, the Federal Signal ALPR network has assisted LASD in solving two key cases. A serial rapist in South Los Angeles approached female pedestrians and forced them into his vehicle at gunpoint. A victim obtained a license plate number and provided police with a vehicle description; however, the address for the registered owner of the vehicle was no longer correct. With the help of Federal Signal's ALPR Back Office System Software (BOSS) by PIPS, investigators pinpointed prior vehicle sightings, which led them to the suspect's workplace. The employer provided a cell phone number for the suspect, which enabled police to locate the suspect and make an arrest.

 

In another case, a shooting left one victim dead. Witnesses provided police with a partial license plate and vehicle description. A query of this data in the Federal Signal BOSS system provided investigators with a full license plate number which enabled them to identify the suspect. Surveillance was established on the suspect's address, and the suspect was in custody less than 24-hours after the shooting. The suspect was also wanted in connection with three other homicides.

 

Not a lot of new stuff to report in the Long Beach case of five people shot to death at a homeless encampment in Long Beach. Here's what LA homeless blog is reporting:

Just like the murder three weeks ago of a homeless man in the Rampart area of Los Angeles, the police have not figured out who murdered the five homeless persons in Long Beach, a large city just south of Los Angeles.
<snip>.

Of course, having five people shot to death has rattled this local neighborhood.

KCBS2/KCAL9 has video from the crime scene here.

Here's the latest story from our sister paper the Long Beach Press-Telegram: