Compton Ca

When felons walked into Boulevard Sales and Service, a fortress-like gun store in Compton, they weren't turned away. Instead, law enforcement officials said they were coached. Can't pass the background check? No problem, as long as they had a friend who could.

Los Angeles County sheriff's homicide detectives are looking into the deaths of a man and woman who apparently were shot after a party Friday night in the 1400 block of South Center Avenue in Compton. The dead were identified as Armando Gonzalez, 38, and Lourdes Velasquez, 23. Gonzalez's brother discovered the bodies at 8:30 a.m. Saturday when he went to the location to clean up after a party, said Deputy Anthony Moore.

A student suffered minor injuries in an after-school shooting Wednesday on the grounds of Centennial High in Compton, authorities said. The student, identified by officials only as male and a junior at the school, was struck in the left elbow by a bullet and taken to a hospital for treatment.

Professor Harold Hill had a name for it: "the think system." As a way of teaching music, it had its drawbacks, but anyone who's seen "The Music Man" knows that it worked out in the end. That's what Charles Barnes must have been thinking Thursday morning as he taught his regular marching band class at Roosevelt Middle School in Compton. "Jaime, you feel like tapping on the desk a little bit, you and Jonathan?" he asked his drummers.

One of the keys to baseball's future lies in Compton, on fields so close to the 91 Freeway that the rumble of trucks and whoosh of traffic are part of the ambience. It lies in the hands of the 36 young men who gathered there last week for the Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy's first high school showcase and displayed their talents for more than 130 scouts.

To crack down on gangs and stem soaring violence in Compton, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca asked his deputies and detectives not just to investigate crime but to also probe where gang members were getting their guns. So sheriff's officials embarked on an unprecedented census to track down the origins of nearly 900 weapons confiscated there last year. The results, released Monday, offer a glimpse into the complex and unexpected ways guns get into the hands of gang members.

On Saturday morning, Ollis Morris rushed to move out of his Compton apartment, saying he could no longer sleep in his home of three years. "I'm petrified," said Morris, 58, a bus driver for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. "A few months ago, the garage was set on fire. Three months ago, I got burglarized. And then, this." Four nights earlier, the vacant apartment downstairs was set on fire about 8 o'clock after suspected gang members sprayed graffiti throughout the unit.

A Compton man has been arrested on suspicion of killing two men whose bodies were found near the Yucaipa-Redlands border, authorities said Wednesday. Eracilio Pyan Villa, 27, was arrested Tuesday in connection with the deaths of Pedro Sanches, 53, of Los Angeles and another victim, said Arden Wiltshire, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

A former Compton school board member convicted of fraud was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of violating his probation by secretly getting involved in numerous political campaigns. Basil Kimbrew, 53, used a girlfriend's printing company to work behind the scenes on several campaigns, including one for a candidate running for a Temple City school board seat and one for a candidate running for the Assembly, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Max Huntsman.

A man was shot to death in Compton on Monday in an attack that authorities say was possibly gang-related. The shooting occurred shortly after 6:30 p.m. in the 400 block of West Alondra Boulevard, according to Sheriff's Department deputies. The victim, who was not identified, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Sgt.