Gunfire tore through a small shopping plaza in Hawthorne, California, early Thursday, September 24, 2026, wounding four people — at least three of them struck by bullets — and drawing officers from three police departments to a darkened stretch of Crenshaw Boulevard, where the shooter or shooters had already fled.

The report came in around 2:13 a.m. on Crenshaw Boulevard’s 14100 block, a Hawthorne Police Department spokesperson said. Officers were dispatched after a caller reported gunshots and screaming in the area, a commercial pocket of Los Angeles County’s South Bay region lined with storefronts and parking lots. The call touched off a large, multi-agency emergency response.

Victims Found Across Separate Parking Lots

Officers arrived to find a scene that was scattered rather than contained. Three wounded adults were spread out — in separate parking lots and one near a bus stop bench. At least one of them appeared to be conscious as first responders lifted the person onto a stretcher. Footage recorded at the strip mall showed firefighters and paramedics crouched over an injured man.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department carried three of the victims — two men and a woman, all treated first at the scene — to local hospitals. The fourth, a man, reached a hospital on his own and was identified there afterward, police said. All four escaped with non-life-threatening injuries, according to police. The victims were described only as three men and a woman.

Witnesses Describe an Argument Before the Shots

Witnesses said a group of people had gathered near the intersection of Crenshaw Boulevard and Rosecrans Avenue and fell into an argument shortly before the shooting started. Investigators, for their part, had not publicly confirmed what set off the violence as of the morning of Thursday, Sept. 24, and the circumstances remained under investigation.

A resident in the neighborhood posted video on the Citizen app that captured the sound of the attack. Screams are audible, along with at least three distinct bursts of gunfire. At least 10 shots can be counted across roughly a minute of the footage.

Shell Casings and a Towed Car

Daylight brought a clearer picture of how much ammunition had been fired. Investigators working the scene found a number of spent shell casings strewn across the roadway. Officers also went through a car sitting in the parking lot before having it towed for evidence.

Crenshaw Boulevard between Rosecrans Avenue and El Segundo Boulevard was shut down the morning of Sept. 24 while the Hawthorne Police Department continued its investigation, cutting off a busy north-south artery through the area. Several businesses nearby would remain closed for as long as officers stayed on scene.

The response stretched well beyond Hawthorne’s own force. Officers from the Gardena and Hermosa Beach police departments turned out at the plaza alongside county firefighters and paramedics. Police confirmed that no officer fired a weapon during the incident.

No Arrests and No Suspect Description

Whoever opened fire had left before the first patrol cars reached the plaza, according to Hawthorne police, and the department has not said how many people may have been involved. No descriptions of anyone being sought have been released.

As of Monday, Oct. 5, no arrests had been announced.

Hawthorne, a city of roughly 6 square miles wedged between Inglewood and the beach cities, sits along one of the South Bay’s main commercial corridors, and the intersection where the shooting happened serves as a transit stop as well as a shopping destination — a detail underscored by the bus bench where one of the wounded was found. At that hour, the plaza’s businesses would have been closed, leaving the parking lots and the sidewalk outside them as the scene of the gunfire.

Investigators have offered no account so far of who fired the shots or why, and the witness descriptions of an argument beforehand remain unconfirmed by police. The department’s work on the case was continuing the morning of Sept. 24, with the search for those responsible still open and the block of Crenshaw Boulevard where the shooting happened closed to traffic.