Youth Is Slain Near Home, 4 Wounded in Drive-By Shooting

A 16-year-old boy was killed near his home and four youths were wounded in a drive-by shooting in Paramount late Monday, authorities said.

The apparently gang-related shooting occurred in the 13900 block of Downey Avenue at about 8:20 p.m., Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said. Investigators at the scene said shots were fired from a small red sports car.

“I heard about 10 shots as I was driving up,” said Jim Hughes, a drug counselor at a Fountain Valley hospital who was driving by on his way home at the time of the shooting. “I saw two guys drop right to the road.

“This is what happens when you give these kids automatics,” Hughes said. “It all starts with drugs.”

John Adrian Borrego was pronounced dead at the scene of the shooting, his body lying in the gutter three doors from his home. About a dozen family members gathered around the body as a priest administered last rites, illuminated by the flood lights of television news cameras.

“This shooting . . . has been going on for about two weeks,” said a teen-age boy at the scene who did not wish to be identified.

He said he was Borrego’s friend and that all of the victims were members of “Dogpatch” a local gang.

Four other victims were taken to area hospitals.

A 14-year-old boy was in very critical condition at Charter Suburban Hospital in Paramount with a gunshot wound to the head and four wounds to the leg and back.

Three other teen-agers were hospitalized with less severe wounds.