Crime & Safety

$50K Reward Requested in Church Graffiti Killing

25-year-old Andres Ordones is dead after he and another parishioner tried to stop a woman from writing gang graffiti on their church's wall.

Police and politicians are seeking $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a man and a woman involved in the shooting death of an Historic Filipinotown church member Sunday night.

Councilmember Eric Garcetti, who represents the area, plans to ask the Los Angeles City Council to approve the reward Tuesday, as is required.

25-year-old Andres Ordones died early Sunday evening outside a storefront church where he was a deacon.

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Ordones left services at Principe de Paz church at 3001 Beverly Boulevard at 6:20 p.m. to stop a woman scrawling graffiti on a church wall just north of Beverly Boulevard on Reno Street.

Ordones was responding to the cries of another parishioner, who had already tried to stop the woman. She had pushed that man to the ground.

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As he did, a man in a car at the curb opened fire, killing Ordones and injuring a second parishioner, whose identity still has not been released.

The man and the woman fled in the car and remain at large. Detectives say they may have been rival gang members who were tagging in unfamiliar turf.

Ordoes, whose family is said to be from Guatemala, is very active in the storefront church.

He is said to have grown up in the neighborhood and now to be living on Kingsley near Normandie. He has a one-year-old child and, according to one report, is married to the granddaughter of the church's founder.

Rampart Division investigators are looking for witnesses, and urge anyone with info to call 877-LAPD247. 

There have been 5 homicides in the area just south of the 101 this year, where gang activity is still very strong and a code of silence makes investigations difficult.

One happened just a block away on North Coronado, and also involved a non-gang affiliated individual.


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