Update on "The Hood"

"Tales from 14th Street" Is a look back at childhood days living in San Pedro California. I will share the fun and not so fun adventures of living in the hood during the 80's and early 90's. If anybody grew up in this area during that time please email or comment anytime and share your stories or thoughts.

Photo of of 14th street today, the yellow house in the middle was
where the incident happened.



A couple of weeks ago I had posted about Oscar Barrientos and how he was a young teen in our neighborhood who got killed because of rival gang members. I decided I really wanted to know what might of triggered the motive of his death,and why he was shot.
The gang that resided on the block street was the out cast of San Pedro gangs. Young Crowd was a small gang that started in the 1980's on 14th street by a group of friends that lived in the same area . It is actually originally a gang from Lynwood which was already established and had been around since the 1960's. Somehow they both did not know about each other and the same name usage until a few members of both gangs did a stint in jail. They hooked up somehow and Pedro Young Crowd stayed as a click that grew over time.
They where obviously enemies with the much established Rancho San Pedro, which had been around for decades.
I did some research and I was told a brief story of the incident as it was told at that time. Apparently Young Crowd had went on a mission to go shoot the guys from the rival gang Rancho San Pedro 3rd street. One guy died from that incident and two others where wounded. That same night there was retaliation from the Rancho guys. They got on it quick. Nobody knows how they knew where Oscar lived, but they must of have done their research at one point. The news story is pretty much accurate to what the word of mouth was.

It happened January 6, 1992 at 3:45 a.m. on . That is interesting because as a kid I did not realize that sure was a crazy way to start the new year.

Here is the news archive from the incident.

2 teens die in gang shootings - San Pedro attack, retaliation turn deadly for 17-year-olds
Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA) - Monday, January 6, 1992
Author: Anne C. Mulkern
Gang members shot at rivals on a San Pedro street corner Saturday, killing one youth and
prompting a retaliatory attack that left another dead, police said Sunday.

Hugo Resendiz, 17, of San Pedro , died about 11:40 p.m. Saturday, five hours after he
was shot in the chest, said Los Angeles police Sgt. Jim O'Connor.

"Two gang members walked up to three rival gang members at the corner of Fourth Street
and Grand Avenue," O'Connor said. "They yelled a gang name and began shooting at the
gang rivals, hitting all three."

Resendiz's companions, who were not named, were hospitalized at County Harbor-UCLA
Medical Center in satisfactory condition, O'Connor said.

After questioning the wounded youths, police arrested James Michael Beck, 18, and Javier
Haro, 19 at Beck's home in San Pedro , O'Connor said.

Violence erupted again about 3:45 a.m. Sunday when gang members seeking revenge for
Resendiz's death fired 12 bullets through the front window of a house in the 200 block
of West 14th St., O'Connor said.

Oscar Barrientos, 17, was shot in the head and killed as he slept on a couch in the
front room, O'Connor said.

"Many of the shots passed through the back living room wall, barely missing three
pre-teen children and their mother and father," O'Connor said.

No arrests were made in the second killing, but police were questioning rival gang
members, police said.
Section: LOCAL
Page: A3
Index Terms: NEWS; SHOOTING . GANGS.
Record Number: 0000376659
Copyright (c) 1992, Daily Breeze, All Rights Reserved

From what we heard the guys who shot Oscar where never found. The hood version of story said that they went up to the window and shot Oscar in the head. The news story says otherwise. The reason we heard that was because there was footprints in the mud by the window and blood splatters near the cement. The kids inside where his sister who was my age and two brothers. The family moved out shortly after the incident.

(Disclaimer) In anyway these stories meant to glorify or side with any particular gang, the stories on this blog are just my re-telling of what was around me as a kid.

Special thanks to Random Lengths News for finding the news archive.