Los Angeles Freeway Shootings: An Alarming Trend

In a trend that is occurring with an alarming frequency, Los Angeles continues to experience a spate of freeway shootings. Over the course of the last year, there have been numerous motorists injured and/or killed by car-to-car shootings on Los Angeles-area freeways.

The latest incident involved an innocent nineteen-year-old girl who was shot and killed in her car as she drove home from her job at Los Angeles International Airport. The victim was exiting the freeway at Slauson avenue and the 110(Harbor) freeway when a car pulled up next to her and opened fire. She was hit numerous times and was dead when paramedics and police arrived. The victim had no gang ties and was apparently the victim of a random attack.

Within a week of the shooting, a thirty-year-old alleged gang member was arrested in connection with the fatal shooting.

Law enforcement officials believe that a large majority of the freeway shootings are in fact gang-related. And that makes perfect sense. Los Angeles, with an estimated number of over 30,000 gang members within its borders, is known as the gang capital of the world. With such a large number of gangsters and criminals roaming the streets and freeways, it's no wonder that random acts of violence such as freeway shootings are on the rise. As gang members become more bold and daring, the risk that they pose to the average citizen increases dramatically.

Gang crime, once a situational occurrence confined to certain gang-infested and influenced inner-city neighborhoods, is now starting to pop up in outlying neighborhoods and suburbs that were once immune. And the freeways, for the most part safe and secure travel routes, are now being infected with senseless and heinous gang-related crime. Until law enforcement and city leaders can implement a working strategy to combat the growing threat of gangs and gang crime, freeway shootings and other forms of domestic terrorism are bound to continue.