1 Man Dead, Another Injured in Gunfight

ENCINO — One man was killed and another hospitalized after shooting each other during an argument over a woman, police said.

The argument erupted early Saturday morning after John Luis Bracamonte, 36, who was looking for his girlfriend, entered the home of Russell Roe, 43, Los Angeles Police Det. Rick Swanston said.

Police said the woman, whom they declined to identify, was not at Roe’s home, which is in the 17800 block of Martha Street, a block away from Bracamonte’s residence on the same street.

Roe died at Northridge Hospital Medical Center after sustaining at least three gunshot wounds. Bracamonte, who was shot in the hip, is in fair but stable condition at the same hospital.

Bracamonte is in custody at the hospital on suspicion of murder, police said.

The suspect told police he and his friend Roe had been drinking in the den before the argument started. Then, according to Bracamonte, Roe shot him. Bracamonte said he grabbed the gun and returned fire.

Roe collapsed while Bracamonte managed to walk to his own house then to his cousin’s house nearby, Swanston said.

Officers from the LAPD’s West Valley Division responded at 5:30 a.m. and confiscated about a dozen handguns and rifles in Roe’s home, including a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol believed to be the weapon used in the shootings.

After finding what they thought to be a grenade at Bracamonte’s house, police dispatched the bomb squad and evacuated nearby residents for about two hours.

Police eventually determined the device was only a novelty item, said Swanston, the lead investigator on the case.

Roe’s mother, who was in the house during the shooting, was taken to the hospital as a precaution. Swanston said the woman heard a commotion in the den and saw Bracamonte leaving the house by the front door.

Swanston said he had talked briefly to the woman the two men had argued about, but offered no details to explain what had sparked the shootings.

Residents of this quiet neighborhood just north of Ventura Boulevard awoke Saturday to find yellow police tape blocking off their street.

“I came home from a meeting and my family was standing in the street,” said David Adelstein, Bracamonte’s next-door neighbor.

Adelstein said Bracamonte moved into the home in January. “I never would have guessed he’d shoot somebody,” he said.

Down the block, residents stood on lawns and in the street near squad cars, watching officers enter and exit the home where the shooting took place.

“I’ve lived across the street from them for 20 years and I never had a problem,” said Petrossian Vaz. “He was a nice, quiet man.”