Reginald Hayes, 16

Reginald Hayes, 16, a black teenager, was shot several times at 17516 Harwick Court in Carson around 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 17. He was behind the wheel of a parked car, sitting alone, when a black suspect came up and fired many times into the car. Hayes was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later. Sheriff's Det. Joe Romero said the killer may have been seeking to strike vengeance on behalf of his gang, taking Hayes' life in retaliation for that of Tyrone Taylor's, whose shooting death was chronicled last week on The Homicide Report.

If this theory pans out, Reginald would become one of a handful of people killed recently in Los Angeles County in a cycle of retaliatory street justice. Such killings are often indiscriminate. Vengeance-seekers may target any young man who they find in the rival neighborhood--not necessarily the one whom they believe committed the crime. The idea is simply to intimidate the rival side, and let them know, in essence, that a death on our side will be repaid by a death on yours.

Homicides in which gang members are victims are particularly likely to spark retaliatory cycles, so a vigorous law-enforcement reaction to them is a kind of prevention: If a killer gets arrested, it may defuse vengeful feelings and avert further retaliation.

But typically, public response is lackluster when murder victims are gang members. People often don't find such victims sympathetic. And while individual investigators may exert themselves to clear such cases, there is rarely much external pressure on police departments to solve them. The investigator in Tyrone Taylor's case, for example, expressed surprise at getting any call from a reporter: He assumed Taylor's death would draw no public interest whatsoever.

Yet the appearance of Reginald's name on this week's coroner's list suggest an urgency to the Taylor case--and to gang killing cases in general--at odds with the indifferent press and public response.