2 Students Shot Outside High School

NORTH HILLS — A 17-year-old Monroe High School student was shot in the stomach Monday during a street fight with other youths near the campus and was hospitalized in serious condition while police questioned a suspect.

A 15-year-old boy--also a student at Monroe who may have been just watching the fight--suffered a less serious gunshot wound to a shin, said Capt. Joseph Curreri, of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire station.

Monday’s incident was one of three shootings--one fatal--in just under a year near Monroe High involving the school’s students.

Soon after the shooting, police brought to the station for questioning a youth they apprehended in the neighborhood near the school, said Lt. Anthony Alba, an LAPD spokesman. Arrested on suspicion of attempted murder was Alex Elias, 18, of North Hills, police said. “He was [identified] as having been involved,” Alba said of the youth. It was not clear if he was suspected of being the actual gunman or one of up to 10 assailants who had been fighting with the boy who ended up seriously wounded.

The shooting occurred about 3:40 p.m. at the corner of Nordhoff Street and Haskell Avenue, about 10 minutes after classes were dismissed, according to authorities. The incident started as a fistfight between the teen who later was seriously injured and the group of young men whom police described as possible gang members.