Youth Sought After Fleeing Deputies

Sheriff’s deputies continued searching Thursday for a 17-year-old gang member who escaped from custody outside Inglewood Juvenile Hall on his way to a court hearing on charges of murdering two men in Torrance earlier this year.

Authorities said Leon Durrell Hobley of Compton slipped out of his handcuffs Wednesday morning and hopped a wall to elude probation officers and sheriff’s deputies who were transporting a vanload of suspects to court.

“It’s safe to say that he is considered dangerous,” said Mike Batula, a spokesman for the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.

Hobley, a Crips gang member known as “Bay-Bay” and “Lil Dee,” had been handcuffed to a chain that linked him to four other “high-risk” defendants outside the East Regent Street courthouse, deputies said. His slight build allowed him to squeeze out of the handcuffs, deputies said.

He ran to nearby Crozier Junior High School, where his orange, jail-issued overalls were found under a bush, deputies said.

The Sheriff’s Department, aided by Inglewood police, launched an immediate search. Other area law enforcement agencies also were notified to be on the lookout for Hobley.

Hobley is charged with two counts of murder in the June 8 shooting in Torrance of Demon Johnson, 20, of Compton and Major Blackman, 21, of Gardena.

Hobley, who was arrested July 5, allegedly shot the two men about 2 a.m. as they sat in a car outside a Hawthorne Boulevard bank. Prosecutors say that Hobley stole Johnson’s Chevrolet Camaro because he didn’t have a ride home after passing the night at a nearby bowling alley.

Hobley was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday for a hearing on whether he should be tried as an adult because of his previous criminal record--which deputies declined to detail--and the severity of the pending charges against him.

Hobley was described as a 5-foot, 2-inch, black male weighing about 118 pounds. He has “Love Velda” tattooed on the left side of his chest. Police said he lives in the 800 block of West School Street in Compton.