SAN FERNANDO VALLEY : U.S. Urged to Prosecute Fatal Carjacking Case

Los Angeles police investigators say the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles is reluctant to prosecute the killers of a Panorama City apartment owner in an attempted carjacking, even though President Bush recently signed a statute making carjacking a federal crime and urging federal agencies to cooperate with local police to combat it.

The U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI would not comment on how they planned to treat the crime but said they were investigating.

“The law said the weight of the federal government should be applied to this crime,� said Los Angeles homicide Detective John Edwards. “People are being killed, and we have one of the classic examples of that and we are not getting any cooperation.�

Edwards said he has identified about 25 gang members and others as suspects in the Oct. 31 carjacking incident that resulted in the deaths of Blythe Street apartment owner Donald Aragon as well as one of his suspected assailants.

Gang members surrounded Aragon’s truck as he was leaving his building and demanded that he give up the vehicle. Instead, he reached under his seat for a revolver and a gunfight began. Aragon and a 19-year-old gang member were killed and a 17-year-old alleged assailant was wounded.