7 Youths Held in Melee at Lawndale Campus

Angry over the shooting death of a young Latino man by black youths earlier this week, a group of 20 to 40 Latino gang members Friday attacked black male students at Leuzinger High School in Lawndale, officials said.

No students were seriously injured. About 35 sheriff’s deputies and Hawthorne police officers descended on the campus and arrested seven youths on suspicion of assault and others on suspicion of failure to disperse and threatening school officials. They were expected to be released by this morning.

Administrators say the fistfights, which broke out just before 1 p.m., drew dozens of students, but Leuzinger students say hundreds joined the melee as black students rushed to defend blacks, and Latinos fought for Latinos.

Tension had been building on campus since Wednesday, when 19-year-old Alfonso Jacobo of Inglewood was shot during an argument with three black youths on Inglewood Avenue near 147th Street.

Police say Jacobo, a former Leuzinger student, and two Latino friends argued with three black youths Wednesday, exchanging racial slurs. Members of both groups reportedly drew guns and opened fire. Jacobo, who was shot in the stomach, died at Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center in Hawthorne on Thursday.

Witnesses’ accounts of the shooting are contradictory and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Friday that it does not have enough evidence to press charges against the three black youths arrested in the case.

But among gang circles, talk of retaliation against black students began almost instantly, school officials said.

Leuzinger Principal Sonja Davis said student members of the school’s conflict-resolution program alerted school officials Wednesday that Latino gang members wanted to punish blacks for Jacobo’s death.

Because of the warning, additional security guards had been brought in to augment the school’s force of about 12 guards.

Racial problems at Leuzinger are nothing new. Three years ago, a fight between blacks and Latinos spilled out onto Rosecrans Avenue. And the school has had at least one major racial fight every year since.

Correspondent Gordon Dillow contributed to this story.