Stray Bullet

A driver was shot and critically injured by a stray bullet, and another man was seriously injured in the Westlake area Tuesday when two gang members opened fire, police said. The shootings occurred about 6:20 p.m. near the corner of 8th Street and Beacon Avenue, just west of downtown Los Angeles, when two suspected gang members attempted to rob a third man, said Don Cox, a Police Department spokesman. The victim "took off running," Cox said.

The bullet hit 7-year-old Stephanie Nicole Ella as she gazed up at the fireworks in a Manila suburb, abruptly turning a New Year's Eve celebration tragic and ultimately ending her life. The little girl died Wednesday afternoon in a Quezon City hospital, two days after the stray bullet struck her in the head and after suffering a string of cardiac arrests, the official Philippines News Agency reported . She was among about 700 people injured in raucous and often violent celebrations in the Philippines this week, the latest in a tragic tradition in a country where police have tried to clamp down on celebratory gunfire and dangerous pyrotechnics.

Gunfire pierced an alley fence Christmas Day, striking and killing a 46-year-old woman as she visited a neighbor in Southeast Los Angeles, police said. Etelinda Moreira was in her neighbor's kitchen about 5 p.m. Tuesday when someone opened fire in an alley on the 11200 block of South Main Street near 112th Street, said Sgt. Henry Quan of the LAPD's Southeast Division. At least one bullet struck a van parked in the backyard--narrowly missing two children, police said.

In a city known for its post-hippie vibe -- street fairs, vegan cafes and politics so earnestly committed to consensus that almost nothing gets done -- Seattle's violent spring has been a rough awakening. This glacier-rimmed city that sees itself as an emerald refuge at the corner of a troubled country has been caught in a wave of often random gun violence that has claimed 21 lives since the beginning of the year--as many as in all of 2011. Wednesday's rampage by a troubled gunman, which left four people dead in a northeast Seattle cafe and a fifth in a downtown parking lot, was the worst and latest.

"Summertime and the livin' is easy," the old song says, but not in Santa Ana--or anywhere else in the county where gangs cruise the streets shooting down people and terrorizing neighborhoods with their brand of urban violence known as drive-by shootings.

A young man was killed early Saturday when a bullet pierced the exterior wall of the restaurant where he was sitting and struck him in the head. Huber Trujillo Salgado, 19, of Fullerton was found sprawled in a booth with a gunshot wound about 1:40 a.m. when police responded to a call about shooting outside the Los Sanchez Restaurant and Bar, at 2970 W. Lincoln Ave.

An elderly Buena Park woman was fatally wounded by a stray bullet that pierced the locked front door of her home in what police said was an exchange of gunfire among rival gang members. Authorities said they believe Cornelia Mitchell, 82, is the first clearly innocent victim of Orange County gang violence in recent memory. The target of the gunfire was Arrizon Clemente, 17, of Buena Park, a member of the Los Coyotes gang.

A 13-year-old South-Central Los Angeles boy who was struck in the head by a stray bullet in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, died Friday in Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, the Los Angeles County coroner's office reported. The boy, identified as Dean Morgan, was standing with his family and neighbors behind an apartment building in the 900 block of West 42nd Place as New Year's celebrants fired into the air to create what one police officer called a "rain shower" of bullets.

A woman was shot in the neck as she decorated her Christmas tree Friday when a stray bullet pierced the front door of her home, police said. The bullet apparently was fired about 8:30 p.m. near the woman's house in the 3900 block of South Budlong Avenue, said Lucy Diaz, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department. Several .45-caliber shell casings were found about 100 yards from her home. Police do not have any information about what happened there, Diaz said.

The latest murky cycle of violence in Indian-held Kashmir began late Monday in the Gangbugh neighborhood of Srinagar. Residents say paramilitary officers chased Muzaffar Ahmad Bhat, 17, and two 11th grade friends, possibly fired shots in their direction — the details were not clear. The frightened youths jumped into a drainage canal to get away. Bhat, who could swim, failed to return home and the community mounted a search. At dawn, his body was found floating in the canal.

"Micmacs" is a whimsical whirligig of a movie filled with salvaged metal and salvaged lives, where a bullet to the brain brings insight and a bunch of clever misfits bring a couple of weapons-making giants to their knees. What fun. This good-versus-evil fable soon reveals itself to be a wide-ranging philosophical playground for French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet as he settles into a Paris junkyard where discards, human and otherwise, find a second life. Bazil (the wonderful Dany Boon)

A 4-year-old boy is in critical condition after being hit by a stray bullet in a gang-related shooting, police said. The boy was injured Wednesday night when a man got into an argument with a group of people that escalated into a fight and another man pulled out a gun, said Nancy Pratt, a spokeswoman for the Long Beach Police Department. The shooter's intended victim ran away and was not hit, police said. But the boy was struck while standing with his mother outside a relative's house on Earl Street.

A 14-year-old girl and her 5-month-old sister were injured when a bullet entered their bedroom during a confrontation between rival gangs, authorities said Tuesday. A man standing on the sidewalk in the 3300 block of West Camile Street fired several shots at a passing pickup truck about 8:30 p.m. Monday, said Santa Ana Police Cpl. Jose Gonzalez. A stray bullet entered the house, striking the teenager in the upper torso and pelting the baby with the debris. Witnesses described the shooter as a heavyset, bald man wearing a dark T-shirt.

Ines Maria da Silva stares blankly outside her shack as she tells how she lost all five of her sons to the violence that makes Recife the deadliest major city in Brazil. The first son died 15 years ago in a fight over a girl, another after telling a mob he didn't want a pedophile lynched on his doorstep. The third was stabbed while arguing with a friend and the fourth was shot, mistaken for a thief. Her last remaining son was felled by a stray bullet as he joined Recife's famous carnival celebrations a year ago. "I just want to understand, how come no one is punished?"

A few days after a bullet from a gang shooting tore into an Angelino Heights home last month, killing a 9-year-old girl, police announced with much fanfare that they had arrested the two gunmen. But the suspects -- Cesar Zamora, 23, and Steven Castanon, 20 -- are now out of jail and back in their old neighborhood, to the dismay of residents who held candlelight vigils to memorialize Charupha Wongwisetsiri.

A 9-year-old girl from Thailand who was struck by a stray bullet a week ago while inside her Angelino Heights home has died. Charupha Wongwisetsiri died Tuesday at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, spokesman Steve Rutledge said Wednesday. Charupha's mother, searching for a better life for her daughter, brought her to the United States about a year ago.