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# Gang activity on east side escalates
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/gang-activity-on-east-side-escalates/
- Published: 2002-03-21T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:09:23.000Z
- Author: Andrew Fixmer
- Tags: Crime, Pico, #archive-import

*Gang-related shootings hammer Pico neighborhood*

Two men were shot Tuesday night in a Santa Monica east side neighborhood — the second gang-related incident in less than a week.

The victims were standing amongst a group of people on the cul-de-sac of 21st Street near the Santa Monica Freeway in the Pico neighborhood, when a lone suspect approached them about 9 p.m. and fired multiple rounds into the crowd, police said.

One victim was hit in the chest and the other was shot in the stomach. Both men were treated at the scene by Santa Monica Fire Department paramedics and taken to a local hospital where they remain in stable condition.

Police said the suspect ran West toward the Santa Monica Freeway but evaded police officers, who responded within a minute of the incident.

Officers patrolling the area as part of a planned increased police presence in the neighborhood responded after hearing gun shots. When officers arrived on scene, they found the two victims standing in the street, police said.

“Officers had stopped to speak to the crowd 20 to 30 minutes before the incident,” said police department spokesman Lt. Frank Fabrega. “They stopped to talk to them as a part of their patrol, and as part of reaching out to residents in the community.”

Police sealed off the area where the incident occurred and searched for the suspect, who they described as a male wearing black clothing. Nobody fitting that description was found.

Witnesses said the shooter got out of a car and approached the small crowd on foot, but police could not confirm whether a car was involved.

“The only information we have is that the subject was on foot,” Fabrega said. “No vehicle was seen or heard, as far as we have been told.”

Two rival gang members exchanged gunfire early Saturday morning on the corner of 16th Street and Delaware Avenue. They led Santa Monica police officers on a high-speed pursuit through residential side streets before ditching their car and evading police in Venice Beach. No one was injured.

There have been six shootings since January in the Pico neighborhood, which runs south from the Santa Monica Freeway to Ocean Park Boulevard and east from Lincoln Boulevard to Centinela Avenue.

The neighborhood has been engulfed in a turf war between two rival gangs — the Graveyard Crips and the Santa Monica 17th Street gang — for years. The tension appears to be not only racially motivated between the two groups — one black, the other Latino — but also territorial.

In response to the recent spate of shootings, the Santa Monica Police Department has formed a Pico Neighborhood Taskforce which will provide a higher level of police presence in the area.

On March 11 officers responded to a shooting at the 1800 block of 19th Street. When they arrived they found two vehicles had been hit by bullets.

A day earlier, four Hispanic men driving a dark-colored sport utility vehicle shot a black male in the stomach who was riding a bike along the 1900 block of Delaware Avenue.

A teenager was shot twice in the head on Feb. 11 on Virginia Avenue, near the Edison Elementary School located between Virginia Avenue and Kansas Avenue. The boy, whose identity is being withheld, survived the incident.

On Jan. 25 police locked down a portion of the neighborhood after a driver tried to evade police when officers tried to pull the vehicle over on a traffic stop. Officers stationed at 18th Street and Delaware reported being fired upon — the bullet hit a patrol car. No one was injured, and police arrested two suspects thought to be connected to the incident.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 21, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/032102.pdf?ref=smdp.com)