LOS ANGELES - A suspect was arrested yesterday in the killing of a well-known antigang counselor who was shot to death when he confronted a tagger writing graffiti in Los Angeles, police said.
Police say the former gangster, Ronald “Looney’’ Barron, 40, was killed Sunday night when he left a bar in central Los Angeles and noticed a tagger defacing a wall. When confronted, police say, the tagger pulled out a gun and shot Barron multiple times.
He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
A former member of the Mansfield Crips, Barron worked for the past decade for Amer-I-Can, which runs a gang intervention program in which former gangsters counsel youth to avoid crime and violence.
“He turned around hard-core gang members,’’ said Vicky Lindsay, executive director of Project Cry No More, a Compton-based group that counsels mothers of children killed in gang violence. “He was well, well loved.’’
Fear about violence in retaliation for Barron’s killing led the Mayor’s Office on Gang Reduction and Youth Development to call a meeting of gang intervention workers late Monday.
