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# Gangs exchange fire and evade SM police
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/gangs-exchange-fire-and-evade-sm-police/
- Published: 2002-03-19T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:09:15.000Z
- Author: Andrew Fixmer
- Tags: Crime, Pico, #archive-import

*Suspects led police on a high-speed chase through side streets*

Two rival gang members exchanged fire early Saturday morning and then led Santa Monica police officers on a high-speed pursuit through residential side streets.

Neighbors called police officers who arrived in minutes of the 1:30 a.m. shooting on the corner of 16th Street and Delaware Avenue in the Pico Neighborhood.

Officers witnessed a 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass speeding out of the area. Police pursued the vehicle but they said the suspects refused to pull over. After the shooting, local residents said they saw a man running west along Delaware Avenue.

Witnesses said they heard approximately 10 shots fired from what they described as a “large caliber weapon,” but a police department spokesman declined to comment on the gun or evidence collected by officers at the scene.

Police officers described the two individuals as Hispanics who appeared to be in their late-teens and wearing dark clothing.

After leading police on a high-speed chase south-bound through residential side streets, the suspects ditched their vehicle at Sixth Street and Brooks Avenue in Venice Beach and fled on foot, police said.

Police officers established a perimeter around the area and conducted a search with the help of officers from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Pacific Division and a helicopter from The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

However, the suspects were no longer in the area and currently remain at large. The suspect’s vehicle was recovered and is being examined by the SMPD Forensic Unit. A police department spokesman said nobody was injured in the incident.

Since January there have been five shootings 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 surrounding Delaware Avenue has been engulfed in a turf war between two rival gangs — the Graveyard Crips and the Santa Monica 17th Street gang — for years. And the tension appears to be not only racially motivated between the two groups — one black, the other Latino — but also drug-related.

High-ranking police department officials met last week about the recent spate of shootings in the Pico neighborhood and increasing the department’s presence in the neighborhood.

To protect the operation, police department officials have declined to say how much it would increase its presence there or how many officers are currently based in the Pico neighborhood.

However, four officers and a sergeant are based out of the Virginia Avenue Park Police substation and beat officers routinely check through the Pico neighborhood with an overlapping of patrols between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.

“We want to deploy our officers to deter and arrest these suspects that are armed,” said SMPD spokesman Frank Fabrega. “We want to be proactive rather than reactive.”

Pico community activists said they welcome the heightened police presence and hope the department continues to focus on the neighborhood.

“A police presence deters street crimes,” said Peter Tigler, president of the Pico Neighborhood Association. “It has been proven in other neighborhoods in Santa Monica, so we know the correlation works.”

Last Monday, officers responded to a shooting at the 1800 block of 19th Street in the Pico neighborhood. When they arrived they found two vehicles that had been damaged by bullets.

On Sunday March 10, four Hispanic men driving a dark-colored sport utility vehicle shot a black male in the lower torso who was bicycling along the 1900 block of Delaware Avenue.

A teenager was shot twice in the head Feb. 11 on Virginia Avenue, near the Edison Elementary School located between Virginia Avenue and Kansas Avenue. The boy, who’s identity is being with-held, 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.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 19, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/031902.pdf?ref=smdp.com)