L.A., Glendale seek injunction against Toonerville gang

Lawyers for Los Angeles and Glendale have filed a civil lawsuit seeking a joint gang injunction to restrict the activities of Toonerville, a decades-old gang known for orchestrating killings and even a police ambush, officials said Monday. Since the 1950s, the Toonerville gang’s mostly Latino members have claimed a largely middle-class area of northeast Los Angeles that includes business warehouses and homes north of Los Feliz Boulevard between San Fernando Road and the Los Angeles River. Last year, one of its most notorious leaders, Timothy Joseph McGhee, was convicted of three murders and organizing an ambush of two LAPD officers in 2000. Authorities believe McGhee, once among the U.S. Marshals’ most wanted, was responsible for as many as a dozen homicides. ‘Gangs and gang members do not observe jurisdictional or legal boundaries, and they often commit their crimes across city lines,’ said Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, who sought the injunction with Glendale City Atty. Scott Howard. Delgadillo, who attended school in the area, said gang members terrorized the community then as they do today.