The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has successfully followed the movements of gang members by using a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system, authorities said on Wednesday.
By using the GPS for the first time, the LAPD got an immediate break in a slaying case, according to police sources.
At a press conference here, police chief William Bratton announced the arrests of the gang members, who are suspected in the slaying of Nelly Vergara Hernandez, a young woman shot to death in a Mid-City neighborhood plagued by gang activity.
Hernandez, who was 19 or 20, was shot Monday in downtown Los Angeles, according to the LAPD.
As part of a new state crackdown on gangs, authorities last month placed GPS monitoring bracelets on 20 gang members as a condition of their parole from prison. The bracelets keep a running log of where the 20 gangs members are and include time-stamped mapping.
Detectives said the system paid off Monday night following the woman's slaying. As soon as the radio call went out reporting the drive-by shooting, Sgt. Ruby Malachi, who runs the LAPD's crime analysis center, directed her officers to punch in the date, time and location into the computer tracking the movements of the 20 gang members.
She noticed that one of the gang members was at the scene where the shooting occurred.
A police helicopter tracked the gang member's GPS trail and eventually arrested seven suspects.
All were booked on suspicion of murder, though officials have not said which one they believe fired the fatal shot.
Source: Xinhua/agencies
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