Youths

A teen-ager from Santa Ana was shot in the legs after five youths, thought to be gang members, tried to crash a Westminster junior high school graduation dance Thursday, police said. Andy Thanh Pham, 16, who does not attend the school but told police that he was attending his brother's graduation at Russell I. Johnson Junior High, was wounded while being chased by the youths in the school parking lot, Westminster Police Officer Tom Broderson said. The five assailants then fled from the school in a white Cadillac and a red sedan, Broderson said.

Five youths were wounded--three of them critically--by bullets fired from a passing car in Chinatown Friday night, police said. All five were sitting on a bench at a bus stop in front of the Bank of America building at 850 N. Broadway when a car sped past and the occupants opened fire just before 11 p.m., Los Angeles Police Lt. James Darr said. The car drove away, and none of the assailants was captured. Identities of the victims were not released.

Five Los Angeles County youths are in custody and sixth is being sought by police in connection with a grave-robbing incident early Monday at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cypress. According to Police Lt. Bob Vandurraga, the suspects were found on the roof of a cemetery building by police responding to a silent alarm about 12:40 a.m. The cremated remains of two persons taken from two crypts that had been broken into were recovered, Vandurraga said.

It was refreshing to read that thousands of youth all over America are saving sex for marriage. ("Youths at Baptist Convention Pledge Chastity Till Marriage," Jan. 8). In the '60s, the saying was "never trust anyone over 30." Perhaps teens today could say the same thing. So many adults in their lives, including authority figures, say the young can't control their sexual urges and must be medicated, fitted and rubberized. Perhaps these youngsters see through the "safe sex" message because sexually transmitted diseases are now epidemic in our country.

Two youths have been arrested on suspicion of murder in the firebombing of a Southeast Los Angeles apartment in which an infant and her mother were killed, police said Thursday. Robert Vanke, 18, and a 14-year-old boy, whose identity was not disclosed, were taken into custody Wednesday near the Pueblo del Rio housing project, site of Tuesday's firebombing, authorities said. Police identified the fire victims as Delores Young, 38, and her 11-month-old daughter, Jaleesa Cray.

A 15-year-old Oxnard boy wounded in a drive-by shooting was able to talk to police Friday afternoon, authorities said. The boy, whose name was withheld because he is a juvenile, was walking along East Pleasant Valley Road near Saviers Road in Oxnard about 6:20 a.m. when he was shot once in the arm, said David Keith, an Oxnard police spokesman. The boy told paramedics that he was shot by a group of youths in a car, but Keith said police investigators have not yet confirmed that information.

A 14-year-old girl distraught over losing her boyfriend fatally shot herself in the head after killing the boy, 15, and his friend, 14, outside a junior high school gymnasium, authorities said today. One boy died in the schoolyard of Spanaway Junior High School after the shooting Tuesday and the other died at Madigan Army Medical Center, Sheriff's Capt. Mark French said. The girl, Heather Smith, died at Madigan at 9:45 a.m. today.

When old people talk about youth, certain standard topics--clothes, values, fads--are apt to come up. But while surveying older people in the black community recently, Yolanda Becerra-Jones began to hear a new and troublesome variation on the usual themes. The issue now is fear of young people. Many of those Becerra-Jones interviewed told stories of acquaintances who had been assaulted by youths.

Aspiring young boxers will no longer have to sit in the balcony of the Grand Olympic Auditorium and wonder if they will get to fight. Their chance may come as early as April 29. In addition to staging professional fights, the newly refurbished Grand Olympic Sports Complex will also house a boxing and fitness center for youths from the Central City.

Editor's note: The writer spent much of his childhood in foster homes. At age 11, he ended up at Vista Del Mar, an orphanage in Cheviot Hills that later became a residential treatment center for disturbed youths. He wrote this letter in response to the Jan. 5 cover story "Family Matters." I had a lot of emotional problems. I was a lost kid, confused and upset. I learned to exist. I had no parents, and had to sit and watch as most of the other kids went home to their parents.