Police Arrest Two in Last Week’s Shooting

By Lookout Staff

June 12 -- Police have arrested two men suspected of taking part in a drive by shooting in the Pico Neighborhood last week.

Officers patrolling the neighborhood stopped a black Chevrolet Tahoe for a traffic violation in the 1900 block of Pico Boulevard Tuesday at around 6:30 p.m.

During the stop, they realized the vehicle matched the description of a black sports-utility vehicle used in what was apparently a gang-related shooting on June 5 that did not result in injuries.

In addition, the two occupants, Andre Stephaun Alexander and Rodney Lenny Crayton matched the physical descriptions of the suspects involved in the shooting on Delaware Avenue near 22nd Street.

During a later search of the vehicle, police discovered a loaded handgun along with other evidence that may link them to the shots that struck a parked vehicle occupied by two young Hispanic men, as well as a neighboring unoccupied vehicle.

Alexander and Crayton were arrested and transported to the Santa Monica Jail. Alexander’s bail is set at $1 million and Crayton has no bail.

The shooting came two weeks after shots were fired on May 18, 19 and 20, leading to a police crackdown that resulted in six arrests. No one was injured in the shootings.

On May 9, two shots were fired, one of them piercing the window of a bedroom of an affordable housing project where children were asleep.

Last week’s shots were fired on the fringes of a violence-prone pocket of the Pico Neighborhood where numerous shootings have taken place in recent years, some of them gang-related.