Man Killed by Stray Bullet on New Year’s

Benjamin Velasco carried a gun for his job as a security guard, but he did so reluctantly. He rarely touched it at work and refused to bring it near his family.

But his caution around guns was not enough to protect him.

The 31-year-old father of two girls was killed early New Year’s morning after a stray bullet hit him in the back as he stood outside his mother’s home in Willowbrook.

Sheriff’s investigators believe the bullet that struck the Lynwood man was fired as part of a holiday celebration.

Velasco didn’t know what hit him after he dropped his sleeping children off at his mother’s house on South Mona Boulevard shortly after 1 a.m. He and his wife, Stella, were on their way to a party.

“Wow, I think someone hit me,” he said, clutching the left side of his back, said Sal Siordia, his brother-in-law, who witnessed the incident.

There was no sound of gunshots. “Nothing,” Siordia said, “absolutely nothing.”

Velasco ran into the house and collapsed on the sofa, Siordia said. Relatives called police and paramedics.

“He was having problems breathing. I applied pressure to the wound, but there was a lot of blood,” Siordia said. “We thought he would be OK.”

Doctors at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center discovered the bullet that family members speculate may have punctured his lung, killing him.

His wife was devastated, Siordia said. “At the hospital, she said, ‘I’m not leaving until Benjamin goes home with me,’ ” he said. “She was hysterical.”

At least four other area residents were struck by stray bullets New Year’s Eve. None suffered life-threatening injuries. In East Los Angeles, a 10-year-old boy was hit in the head by a bullet that traveled down his face and lodged in his cheek, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Margie Wagner. The child, who was in the backyard of a home at the time, was believed to be in good condition late Monday.

In three other incidents, an 18-year-old in Compton and a 17-year-old in Whittier were hit by bullets, and a Los Angeles man was hit in the hand while cooking in his backyard near USC, law enforcement officials said. None was seriously hurt.

Shortly after midnight, a sheriff’s patrol car was struck, with the bullet lodging in the door frame. No injuries were reported.

“You’d think people would finally learn” not to shoot in the air, said Sgt. Richard Sanchez of the LAPD’s Central Division. “How much education does it take?”

Between Friday night and Monday morning, California Highway Patrol officers arrested 271 people in Los Angeles County on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, CHP officials said.

Lionel Sagastumie, 32, was arrested on charges of felony drunken driving and manslaughter after his minivan hit and killed a 60-year-old man, believed to be homeless, who was crossing Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.

In an unrelated accident, Ted J. Demers, 42, of Malibu was killed when he lost control of his Toyota Land Cruiser while driving early Monday on Briarbluff Drive in Malibu. The vehicle careened down a steep embankment, and Demers was ejected from the car and struck a home on Castlewood Drive--a home that coincidentally belonged to an ex-girlfriend of Demers.

It is unclear whether drugs or alcohol contributed to Demers’ crash.

In South Los Angeles, sheriff’s deputies shot and wounded an unidentified man who was standing outside a business near the scene of a reported burglary and gunshots. The man repeatedly reached for a shiny object in his waistband, said Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Jauch--an object that turned out to be a package, possibly drugs, wrapped in duct tape. The man was listed in guarded condition at King/Drew Medical Center, he said.

Separate, relatively peaceful New Year’s Eve parties at Staples Center and the Los Angeles Sports Arena that drew tens of thousands of party-goers were disrupted by small fights, police said. At the Sports Arena, three teenagers were stabbed, one seriously, in a fight reportedly over a girl. At Staples, four men were arrested on charges of misdemeanor battery during “a fistfight over beer,” Sgt. Sanchez said.

*

Times staff writer Elise Gee and wire reports contributed to this story.