Compton Ca

About 300 rifles, shotguns and handguns were collected from residents in exchange for $100 gift cards in a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department program to get guns off the street in this city with a high number of homicides, officials said. "We ran out of gift cards, it was so successful," sheriff's Deputy Tim Tellez said of the program that ended Sunday. The Sheriff's Department offered cards to Target, Best Buy, Home Depot and Ralphs in exchange for any working firearm.

This column got its start as a favor to a friend. Kimberly called me for advice about a month ago. She's a Starbucks exec who travels around the country setting up coffee kiosks in grocery stores, hospitals and retail outlets. Her boss had asked her to take on a project that would require long hours and a 120-mile daily commute from Porter Ranch to Compton. She was worried. "It's so far," she said. And she wasn't talking just about miles; we both recognized that.

Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies used to brace for trouble each time they pulled into a cluster of apartment buildings on South Grandee Avenue near the Compton airport. It's a cul-de-sac where they could be easily cornered by gang members But on a recent Friday night, deputies Jose Sandoval and Larry Waldie spotted only a few teenage girls who didn't appear to be causing trouble. There were no gang members in sight.

More than 450 truck drivers, welders and mechanics chanted "yes we can" and "we are united" early Friday as they went on strike against Waste Management facilities in Compton, Long Beach and Sun Valley. The workers with Teamsters Local 396 walked off the job about 3 a.m., following a vote earlier in the week to reject the company's latest contract offer, and leaving at least 225,000 residents without service.

Authorities Tuesday were searching for a teenage boy suspected of killing a 14-year-old boy after an argument near East Rancho Dominguez Park. Danny Romero Rodriguez of Downey died Monday of multiple gunshot wounds to the upper body, said Lt. Al Grotefend of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department homicide bureau. Grotefend said witnesses described the suspect as 15 or 16 years old, Latino, 5 feet 7, with a thin build and dark, spiked hair. He was wearing a brown shirt.

Decades of storm drain runoff and illegal dumping have devastated lower Compton Creek, choking its foliage with trash and lacing its knee-deep water with pesticides and industrial waste. But a surprising variety of wildlife clings to a 1/4 -mile-long stretch of creek hemmed in by a casino, a Metro Blue Line station, a freeway and a mall under construction. Turtles chase minnows in the murky, barely moving water. Green herons stand like sentinels on discarded automobile parts covered with muck.

A man suspected of fatally shooting his pregnant girlfriend while she was driving him and her two children was charged Wednesday with murder. Stephen Mark Picart, 33, is accused in the death of Sharon Carter and the unborn baby. He made his first court appearance in Compton Superior Court. Picart was ordered jailed in lieu of $4-million bail. Carter, 31, was shot in the back of the head Sunday as she was driving her SUV in Watts, authorities said.

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy shot and killed a man early Saturday after he pointed and fired a gun at the deputy after a traffic stop, authorities said. According to sheriff's officials, the shooting occurred at Muriel Avenue and Pixley Street about 1:15 a.m. after the 21-year-old, who has not been identified, made an illegal U-turn in a pickup truck. The deputy pulled the truck over, officials said, but as he walked up to the vehicle, it sped off.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy David Rodriguez peered suspiciously at half a dozen suspected gang members loitering at Compton's Kelly Park. He thought they probably had drugs or weapons. He slowed his patrol car to a crawl on Pauline Street but drove past the park. Like most deputies in Compton, Rodriguez works alone. And he learned early on that there are situations to avoid without a partner. "You have to be a little more selective.

Turn the corner onto West Tichenor Street from Wilmington Avenue, no more than a mile from the 91 Freeway in Compton, and here is what you see: the back end of an Arabian horse trotting up the street. Here is what you hear: roosters crowing, chickens clucking. Across the street from the well-tended and carefully rehabilitated home of Danny and Arron Afflalo lives Eddie Stovall. In Stovall's driveway is a horse trailer, in his backyard three horses. "Red Cloud, Cheyenne and Lightning," he says.