At 1 a.m. one Friday morning two years ago, Clyde Moore idled in his red Jaguar sedan outside a Panorama City apartment building known as a hotbed of drug dealing.
Moore, 70, sat next to his wife, who testified at a recent hearing that a Latino man approached their car before demanding, “What y’all n— doing out here?”
He was holding a gun.
It’s unclear whether Moore and his wife, who are Black, knew about recent tensions between two gangs — one Black, one Latino — over drug turf.
A predominantly Latino gang called Blythe Street considers 9010 Tobias Ave. its “stronghold,” Officer Julio Paredes of the Los Angeles Police Department testified Wednesday at a preliminary hearing. “They dominate that building,” he said.
The hulking, three-story gray concrete structure is the width of a city block, with entrances on Tobias Avenue and Van Nuys Boulevard. Paredes testified that when customers drive up on either side of the building, Blythe Street members retrieve drugs from apartment units inside and run back to the waiting buyer.
The building has been the site of several killings. In 2018, two Blythe Street members ambushed a higher-up in the gang as he exited his ground-floor apartment. Prosecutors alleged Oscar “Smokey” Molina was gunned down on orders of Blythe Street’s imprisoned leader, Ezequiel “Wicked” Romo.
The two killers, Eder “Mousey” Mendoza and Lorenzo “Scooby” Gonzalez, were convicted this year of murdering Molina and a woman who witnessed the crime.
More recently, an associate of Blythe Street, Luis Gaona, was shot to death outside the complex on Feb. 8, 2024. Detectives suspected that members of a Black gang, the Original Valley Gangster Crips, killed Gaona in an attempt to wrest control of the drug dealing hub.
Moore and his wife lived a few blocks from Tobias Avenue in an apartment building for chronically homeless people. His wife, whom The Times is not naming out of concern she could face retaliation, said they went to Tobias Avenue to give some money to her uncle, who lived there. LAPD Det. Clifford Parchman testified authorities found cocaine, drug paraphernalia and three counterfeit $100 bills in Moore’s car.
Six months before the confrontation, Moore’s wife said, the same Latino man approached them on Tobias Avenue and demanded Moore “pay some dues to be in that area.” She identified the man as Andrew Lopez, 26, a reputed Blythe Street member. Lopez’s attorney did not return a request for comment.
“What are you talking about?” Moore replied, in his wife’s telling. “I take care of my kids, my wife, my family. Why do I have to pay you?”
When Lopez approached them again the morning of Aug. 23, 2024 — this time armed with a gun — Moore’s wife said, she told him: “Excuse me, it’s nothing to do with you. My uncle stays here.”
Lopez raised the gun, she testified, and she saw its red laser sight running across her body. She heard a gunshot. Stunned, her ears ringing, she heard a second shot and dove under the dashboard, she testified.
“Stache!” she yelled at Moore, using his nickname. “Wake up! He’s shooting!”
Moore stepped on the gas and crashed through a wrought iron fence. He died from a single gunshot wound to the back of his head, Parchman testified.
The detective obtained surveillance video from the building that appeared to show Lopez, who was living in a third-floor unit, running up and down the stairs that night to sell drugs to customers.
Early the next morning, Lopez emerged from the apartment with the lower half of his face covered with black fabric. As he ran down the stairs, he appeared to be holding a gun, Parchman testified. The shooting itself was not captured on video.
Lopez was arrested on suspicion of murder the day after Moore was killed. He yawned in his booking photograph, which showed the tattoos that cover his face and head: A “B” on his chin. “BST” on the back of his head. And the words “Don’t Get Stung” — a nod to the Blythe Street gang’s obsession with bees — inked on the left side of his head.
After two days of testimony, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Walgren ruled he’d seen enough evidence for Lopez to stand trial on murder, attempted murder and firearms charges. Lopez has pleaded not guilty. Walgren had presided earlier this year over the trial related to the 2018 killing at the same building.
Blythe Street continues to guard its turf on Tobias Avenue. Five days after Lopez was arrested, Parchman photographed fresh graffiti on a wall near where Moore was killed. Someone had written in red paint, “Calle Blythe.”
The post Reputed Latino gang member charged with killing Black man amid racially charged turf war appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
