Police seek possible link to Armenian gangsters in shooting death of 4
>From wire services
Updated: 04/04/2010
Armenian gangsters may have been responsible for the assassination-style
gunfire brought against six people at a cafe in North Hollywood, killing
four men and wounding two others, police said today.
The suspect was believed to be a man of Armenian descent, about 30 years
old, according to eyewitnesses who spoke with police.
Community leaders in the Valley Village area, which borders the section of
North Hollywood and Studio City where the blood was shed, worked today to
get out their contention that the area “remains one of the safest in Los
Angeles,” in the words of the president of the neighborhood council.
The group said it has been told that Los Angeles police are working with
officers in predominately-Armenian Glendale “to apprehend the suspects.”
But police were not saying if the bloodshed Saturday was linked to the gang-
style killing of a woman in the Little Armenia section of Hollywood eight
days earlier.
Saturday’s mass shooting, with at least 17 bullets fired, occurred about
4:30 p.m. in the Hot Spot Cafe, 11651 Riverside Drive, a restaurant with
dark, tinted windows that neighbors told the Daily News was often empty.
Police said the victims appeared to have been targeted and that the shooting
may be related to Armenian gangs.
It was unclear how many people saw what happened at the Hot Spot Cafe, but
the Los Angeles Times reported that the gunfire sent witnesses fleeing.
Three men died at the cafe, and a fourth died at a hospital. Two other
victims were hospitalized, one of them reported in critical condition early
today, police said.
The dead men were identified by Los Angeles police as Harut Baburyan, 28,
Sarkis Karadjian, 26, Vardan Tofalyan, 31, and Hayk Yegnanyan, 25.
Police set up a mobile command post near the scene and closed a stretch of
Riverside Drive overnight. About 3:30 a.m., a tow truck took away a late
model Toyota sedan that had blood splattered across the rear, passenger-side
quarter-panel.
The bodies of three men remained inside the restaurant overnight as
detectives and coroner’s investigators documented what they had.
Detectives at the scene declined to go on record about the investigation.
One told a City News Service reporter that the scene inside the restaurant
was “a bloody massacre.”
One nearby resident who heard the gunfire told the Daily News he often saw
men in suits smoking in front of the restaurant.
“The place is shady,” Matt Edwards told the newspaper. “It opened five
years ago and it’s always closed and empty.”
Speaking at a news conference Saturday, LAPD Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese, who
heads the Valley Bureau, said “a gunman or gunmen came in and we had a
shooting with multiple victims dead.”
The case was handled by detectives from the Robbery-Homicide Division, which
handles major crime scenes. Robbery-Homicide was also handling the
investigation into last weekend’s murder of Karyn Safaryan at her modest
apartment in the Little Armenia section of Hollywood.
Karyn Safaryan was found shot to death, her throat slashed, in an apartment
parking area about five miles across Cahuenga Pass from this weekend’s
apparent gang attack. Her slaying that may have been a followup to the
murder of Safaryan’s husband and daughter in Hollywood in 2008.
Police have not said that the Safrayan murders are related to this weekend’s
shootings at the Hot Spot Cafe, but police have said both investigations are
in their early stages.
Police asked anyone with more information to call the LAPD’s North Hollywood
station at 818-623-4016.