UPDATED: 4:12 p.m. PST November 24, 2002
LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles' gang warfare has claimed 20 lives in the past week.
KNBC.Com
The latest death happened in North Hollywood Saturday night. One man was killed in a car-to-car shooting on Lankershim Boulevard. Three men pulled up to the victim's sport utility vehicle and shot him. The suspects reportedly left the scene in a silver Ford Mustang convertible.
Police are still searching for the suspects.
Police say a man was beaten, kicked and shot to death near Los Angeles International Airport early Saturday in a confrontation with gang members.
The 29-year-old man died at a hospital after he was attacked about 1:15 a.m. in the area of the Furama Hotel in the Westchester area of Los Angeles. Police said he was a gang member from nearby Culver City.
A wave of gang murders in Los Angeles is expected to give the city the highest toll of homicides in the nation by year's end. It appears LA gang warfare has now claimed at least 19 lives in a week's time. The homicide toll in Los Angeles has gone over the 600 mark for this year compared to 587 for all of last year.
Homicide Map of recent killings in Los Angeles
The homicides in the nation's second-largest city are about 100 more than New York City and about 30 lower than the homicides in Chicago. Both New York and Chicago have had a decline in homicides from 2001.
Los Angeles police say the flare-up in gang violence is attributed mainly to turf wars over the drug trade and also includes gang members released from prison using bloodshed to reassert their positions. Another reported factor is new gang members proving themselves through violence.
