On this day, Sept. 17, 1995, in Los Angeles, 3-year-old Stephanie Kuhen was shot to death when the car she was traveling in turned the Wrong Way onto a dead-end street and was ambushed by a street gang.
The “Wrong Way” murder shocked the nation as symbol of lawless city streets and led to a federal crackdown on gangs.
Her family was returning from a cookout when the vehicle took a shortcut and mistakenly pulled into a dark alley with graffiti that reads in Spanish, “street of killers.”
Members of an Hispanic gang blocked the car with trash cans and opened fire as the car tried to back away.
A hail of bullets shattered the windows. Stephanie was fatally shot in the head. Her brother Joey, 2, and her mother’s boyfriend, who was driving, were also struck.
-Scott McCabe
