BRIEFLY : 82-YEAR-OLD FATALLY SHOT WHILE ON PORCH.

An 82-year-old grandmother was shot and killed as she got home from church, apparently by gang members from the Nickerson Gardens housing project, police said Saturday.

Viola McClain was shot Friday evening on the porch of her home after two gang-member suspects argued with her grandson, police Sgt. J.D. Allen of the Southeast Station said.

The shooting occurred after Dumar Stokes, 33, smelled smoke and went outside the family home on East 111th Street to investigate. Stokes saw smoke coming from an abandoned building next door and spotted two youths walking away.

When he asked why they had started the fire, one of the boys replied: ``Because we can do anything we want to do,'' according to a police report.

One of the teen-agers took a gun from his waistband and put a bullet in the chamber, Stokes later told police. Stokes ran into his home, but his grandmother was still standing on the porch, just having returned from church.

Stokes heard several gunshots and found his grandmother bleeding from a wound to the throat, police said.

Stokes fired several shots with his own gun at the fleeing teen-agers, but apparently missed, police said.

SOURCE: - City News Service

Defense giant loses suit by ex-workers

General Dynamics Corp. must pay $107.4 million to two former employees who claim they weren't compensated when the aerospace giant sold a business they helped create, a jury decided.

The company was liable for fraud and breach of oral contract in a deal with William Forti and Dolores Blanton, the Superior Court jury found Friday.

Forti, a business development executive, and Blanton, an administrative assistant, worked at General Dynamics' missile plant in Pomona. Each was awarded $3.7 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages.

SOURCE: - City News Service