Police look for suspects in Thursday’s shooting
By Daily Press staff
The fifth gang-related shooting in less than month occurred Thursday in an eastside neighborhood. No one was injured.
Santa Monica Police received a call of shots fired in the 2200 block of Delaware Avenue at 12:30 p.m. A SMPD bicycle officer stationed in the neighborhood arrived within seconds after 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.
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.
The victims have given police little information on the suspects’ description.
The SMPD has arrested six suspects who were allegedly involved in one or more of the four 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 the some of the suspects, where police found evidence allegedly linking them to the shootings.
None of the shootings resulted injuries. 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.
Other suspects are being sought by the SMPD in connection with last week’s shootings, some of which are Pico neighborhood residents and are on active parole, according to SMPD Chief James T. Butts Jr.
The neighborhood has been plagued with gang violence and drug dealing for years. Shootings occurred on May, 9, May 18, May 19 and May 20, 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. No one was injured.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 6, 2003. Read the original PDF.