A night of soccer heartbreak in East Los Angeles turned violent, as gunfire at three locations left four people wounded while crowds filled the streets after Mexico was knocked out of the World Cup.
Three scenes in quick succession
The shootings happened Sunday evening, not long after Mexico's Round of 16 loss to England, ABC7 reported. The first came near Whittier Boulevard and Leonard Avenue at about 9:40 p.m., where two people were shot. In the minutes that followed, two more shootings were reported nearby, at Amalia Avenue and Sixth Street and at Amalia Avenue and Whittier Boulevard, each leaving one person wounded, KTLA reported.
All four victims were taken to hospitals. Authorities did not immediately release their conditions.
What investigators are saying
East Los Angeles is an unincorporated part of the county, patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, whose deputies responded in force to the scenes. Deputies said there had been a crowd in the area for World Cup gatherings, according to ABC7, and investigators were working to determine whether the three shootings were connected to one another.
Officials stopped short of tying the gunfire directly to the match or the crowds, and the cause of the shootings had not been established. No suspects had been identified and no arrests had been announced as of the initial reports.
A tense night across the city
Whittier Boulevard has long been a gathering point for celebration in the largely Mexican American community of East Los Angeles, and big soccer results routinely draw crowds into the street. Anticipating large gatherings around the match, the Los Angeles Police Department had moved to a citywide tactical alert earlier in the day to keep officers available, though the East L.A. shootings fell under the Sheriff's Department's jurisdiction.
For a neighborhood that had turned out to share in its team's World Cup run, the night ended not with the usual noise of celebration but with police tape and four people in the hospital. The Sheriff's Department asked anyone with information to come forward as the investigation continued.
