Two additional suspects arrested in Pico shootings
Two men were arrested Tuesday for attempted murder in connection with last week’s drive-by shooting in an eastside Santa Monica neighborhood.
Andre Stephaun Alexander, 25, of Los Angeles and Rodney Lenny Crayton, 26, of Santa Monica, were arrested after Santa Monica Police officers stopped them for a traffic violation in the 1900 block of Pico Boulevard. Officers realized they fit the description of the suspects involved in a shooting that occurred last week in the neighborhood.
Witnesses and victims told police last week that a black sports utility vehicle fled the scene of the shooting, which occurred in the 2200 block of Delaware Avenue at 12:30 p.m. on June 5. After the traffic stop, police searched the black, Chevy Tahoe and found a loaded handgun, along with other evidence that may link Alexander and Crayton to the shooting, police said.
Witnesses and the two victims, who are Latino and are affiliated with a Santa Monica gang, said two black men in their 20’s shot at them while they were sitting in a parked car, according to police.
Alexander and Crayton are both black.
Witnesses told police that the suspects opened fire from a black SUV before fleeing the scene, heading east on Delaware Avenue and south on Cloverfield Boulevard, police said.
Alexander and Crayton were transported to the Santa Monica Jail. Alexander’s bail is set at $1 million and Crayton has no bail because of a felony parole violation.
Charges have yet to be filed by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office.
The SMPD has now arrested eight suspects who were allegedly involved in one or more of the five shootings that occurred in the area since May 9. The charges range from attempted murder to parole violations. Three searches were conducted in apartments occupied by some of the suspects, where police found evidence allegedly linking them to the shootings.
The arrests are part of the SMPD’s ongoing investigation in the Pico neighborhood, a troubled area of Santa Monica that has been riddled with gang violence and drug dealing for decades. Most of the tension is territorial — between the Graveyard Crips and the Santa Monica 17th Street gang — as well as racial. One gang is black, the other Latino.
The suspects arrested are black, Latino and white. Three of the six arrested live in the Pico neighborhood.
None of the shootings have resulted in injuries.
Other suspects are being sought by the SMPD in connection with the shootings, some of which are Pico neighborhood residents and are on active parole, according to SMPD Chief James T. Butts Jr.
Shootings occurred on May, 9, May 18, May 19 and May 20 and June 5 all within a few blocks of each other.
The May 9 shooting, which occurred in the 1800 block of 17th Street, resulted in a stray bullet traveling through two walls before it hit a dresser in a bedroom of a woman’s home while her four children were there. No one was injured.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 13, 2003. Read the original PDF.