Suspect charged in double homicide

A Los Angeles man has been charged in a December shooting that left two people dead, one of them a bystander who worked at the sheriff's Compton Station, as City News Services reports below.

LOS ANGELES -- A Los Angeles man was charged Friday with capital murder for the Dec.
20 shooting deaths of two people, including an innocent bystander who worked as a records clerk at the sheriff's station in Compton.
Leonard Mitchell, 46, is scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 15 at the downtown Los Angeles courthouse in connection with the slayings of Alexander Castro, 23, and sheriff's civilian employee Adriana Pizarro, 34.
The murder charges include the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, which could make Mitchell eligible for the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors are expected to decide later whether to go that route.
A confrontation between Mitchell and Castro precipitated the gunfire, authorities said.
It appeared that Castro most likely had gone to the area looking for someone he thought was
seeing his girlfriend, and that he got into a verbal altercation with Mitchell, who was not the
man he was seeking, according to Detective Kelle Baitx of the Los Angeles Police Department's Newton Division.
Castro -- who was inside his vehicle -- was hit several times, including twice in the head.
Pizarro was about 150 feet away outside her mother's home at Central Avenue and 50th Street in Los Angeles when she was struck in the eye by a stray bullet. She was taken to County-USC Medical Center and pronounced dead about an hour later.
Mitchell was arrested Tuesday by the Los Angeles Police Department's Newton Division and was jailed without bail.