Gangs

Top Los Angeles law enforcement and elected officials Tuesday acknowledged a recent rise in the number of killings in South Los Angeles and announced plans to bolster anti-gang activity in the area. Speaking at a news conference at the Los Angeles Police Department's 77th Street station, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William J. Bratton said a task force consisting of officers from the LAPD, California Highway Patrol, the mayor's gang-intervention program and other agencies would be formed to focus on the swath of the city south of downtown.

A social worker who grew up in New York after emigrating from Cuba as a child was picked Tuesday by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to run the city's anti-gang programs. Villaraigosa praised Guillermo Cespedes as the innovative architect of his 2-year-old Summer Night Lights program, aimed at reducing violence by keeping the lights on until midnight at parks in some of the city's most crime-ridden areas. In the first year, the mayor said, Cespedes oversaw "every painstaking detail" at eight parks.

It began, as mortal disputes sometimes do in South Los Angeles, over a girl. On one side were the Main Street Crips, one of the more muscular gangs in the neighborhood. Main Streeters commanded respect, if only because they had a bit of money to throw around, even their own small record label. On the other side were the Hoover Criminals. The Hoovers were big, with turf that stretched from Vernon Avenue down past Century Boulevard and into "the hundreds," as the streets are known locally.

Los Angeles cop Juan Aguilar has been battling the Avenues hoodlums long enough to have seen the gang at its most vicious. During his five years working an anti-gang detail on streets the Avenues claim as their own in the city's northeastern reaches, gang members are accused of gunning down a man in broad daylight as he held his 2-year-old granddaughter's hand, opening fire on LAPD officers with an assault rifle and killing a Los Angeles County...

Police said a shooting that killed a 4-month-old boy and wounded two others in Van Nuys early Sunday was prompted by an argument between rival gang members. The baby, Andrew Garcia, was being fed by a family friend holding him in a car parked on Kittridge Street, near the site of a celebration. Anna Contreras, 28, the friend, and Eric Ramirez, who was standing outside the car, also were shot and wounded. Det. James Nuttall of the Los Angeles Police Department said that the baby's father "is linked to a criminal street gang" and that Ramirez is a known gang member.

Marlene Ramirez and Frank Garcia didn't have a lot, but they were devoted to their 4-month-old son Andrew, relatives said Monday. "He was their life," said Veronica Munoz, Ramirez's cousin. On Monday, Garcia, 21, a warehouse worker, and Ramirez, 18, were making funeral arrangements for their baby, a day after he was killed and two others wounded in what police say was a gang-related shooting in Van Nuys. The killing happened about 1 a.m. Sunday in the 14300 block of Kittridge Street as the young couple were preparing to drive home from a friend's baptismal celebration, Los Angeles police said.

When an Orange County judge in 2003 sentenced gang member Antonio Nunez to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a crime, the defendant became one of the youngest in California history to get the penalty. Nunez was 14 when he sprayed an AK-47 assault rifle at police trying to thwart a 2001 kidnapping plot. In addition to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Nunez also was sentenced to four consecutive life terms on separate counts of attempting to murder four police officers.

Drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter during a gun battle between rival gangs Saturday, killing two officers in a burst of violence just two weeks after the city was chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Ten suspected drug traffickers were also killed during the fighting in a shantytown, along with two bystanders, officials said. Bullets flying from the Morro dos Macacos, or Monkey Hill, slum in north Rio de Janeiro hit the pilot of the police helicopter in the leg as he hovered above the shootout, causing the craft to go down.

On a recent Sunday morning, Brian Barajas, a mop-topped 8-year-old, stashed his bike against the wall and raced inside a tired little house, ducking under two withered fruit trees. The house was so close to the tracks you could hear the engineer call out the stops when the train went by. A police helicopter was overhead, just down the street, as sure a sign as any that the day was underway. This is a forgotten corner of South Los Angeles, an immigrant neighborhood hemmed in by warehouses and gangs.

At least 2,000 Brazilian police officers patrolled this coastal city Sunday as officials pledged to hold a violence-free 2016 Olympics despite bloody drug gang shootouts that left 14 people dead. An hours-long gun battle Saturday between rival gangs in one of the city's slums killed at least 12 people and injured six. A police helicopter was shot down and eight buses set on fire during the incident. Police said Sunday that they had killed two suspected drug traffickers in overnight clashes near the Morro dos Macacos ("Monkey Hill")