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The following posts represent the weekly catalogue of Los Angeles County homicide victims confirmed for the period. The entries are lacking in detail this week because the Homicide Report is on a partial break until Sept. 1. More information will be added later.
Shawn Sowell, 33, a black man, was recorded as a homicide victim in South Los Angeles in LAPD jurisdiction; time of death, 1 a.m. Aug. 21. He had recently gotten out of prison and was shot by someone after a brief dispute. More information to come.
Riko Robinson, 22, a black man, was shot multiple times at the intersection of 59th Street and Atlantic in Long Beach, and died at 10:01 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 19.
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Sarai Abigail Lopez, 17, a Latina teenage girl, was shot at about 6:21 p.m. Aug. 17 near the intersection of Romaine Street and Normandie Avenue in the East Hollywood area, and lingered two days at County-USC Medical Center before dying at 9:33 p.m. Aug. 19.
Sarai, who friends called Abigail, was walking with five other teenage girls when a silver Nissan Ultima came cruising down the street, double-parked, and a Latino man or youth got out and started shooting. Sarai dove for the cover of a parked car, but was hit as she attempted to hide there, said Rampart Homicide supervising Det. Fred Faustino. None of the other young women were struck. Faustino said the shooting may have been gang related; police had documented one of Sarai's all-female group as a gang member. Anyone with information is asked to call (213) 207-2060.
Tramaine Thomas, 20, a young black man, was shot at 123 N. Spring St. in Compton, and died at 5:21 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 19.
Beatriz Santiago, a 21-year-old Latina woman, was shot in a backyard in a burst of gunfire from an alley at 1401 W. 38th Street in LAPD's Southwest Division, and died just after midnight Sunday, Aug. 19. She was a student at UC Riverside, and was attending a birthday party with her brother, Roberto, 22, also killed in this double homicide (see post below).
Roberto Santiago Jr., 22, a Latino man, was killed in the double homicide described above, and died at the same time as Beatrice Santiago, his sister.
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Darnell Davis, a 2-year-old black toddler, was listed as a homicide victim in Long Beach at an undisclosed location, from undisclosed causes. His time of death was just before 8 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 19.
Eulogio Ruiz-de la Cruz, 63, a Latino man, may have been strangled to death in Los Angeles County. He was found choked with ties, with his ankles bound, at an undisclosed location. His time of death was listed as 7:22 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 19. Los Angeles sheriff's detectives are investigating.
Donta Bolden, 15, a black youth, was shot at the intersection of 115th Street and Success Avenue in Watts and died at 11:14 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 18. This was a drive-by shooting in the Nickerson Gardens housing project. Donta was in a group. Another victim, a black man, 36, was wounded by gunfire, and remains in extremely critical condition.
Jesus Guevara, 24, a Latino man, was shot in LAPD's Hollenbeck Division while walking out of a liquor store. He had just cashed a check, but the suspects didn't rob him. They just drove up in a black vehicle, yelled something, and shot him. He had no documented gang membership, police said. Time of death: 6:04 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 18.
Ellis Lewis, 24, a black man, was shot multiple times at 21436 S. Main St. in Carson and died at 9:04 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 18.
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Connie Williams, 15, a black teenage girl, was shot in the head at the intersection of 45th Street and San Pedro Street in LAPD's Newton Division, east of the 110 Freeway and south of downtown Los Angeles, early in the morning, Aug. 17.
The young runaway was standing with some young men--the possible targets of the drive-by shooters--and was the only one of the group to be hit, said Det. Dennis Fanning of LAPD Newton station. Her companions sought help, and with friends, they drove her to Kaiser hospital in West Los Angeles, where she died. Her family, who are of Belizean extraction, agreed to donate her organs, Fanning said. She was pronounced dead at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 18.
The case is partially cleared: One suspect, 18-year-old Charles Nicholson, a black young man, is in custody.
Carlos Villavicencio, 25, a Latino man, was shot in the torso sometime before Aug. 18. His body was found that day wrapped in plastic garbage bags in a carport at 25917 Narbonne Ave. in Lomita. His time of death was listed as 6 p.m. Aug. 18.
Ebony Huel, a 16-year-old black teenage girl, was shot in the head at the intersection of North Lincoln Avenue and Montana Street in Pasadena at about 11 p.m. Friday, Aug. 17, and died at 5:55 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 18.
Police officers responding to a "shots fired" call found her lying wounded on the sidewalk. She was transported to a hospital, where she died. Later that afternoon, Pasadena police arrested a suspect: John Reynolds, 19, of Los Angeles. He had been released from prison three weeks before after serving an armed-robbery sentence, and was on parole. More to come. Detectives seek additional clues. (626) 744-4522.
Monson Afualo, an 18-year-old young man of Samoan descent, was stabbed in the abdomen at 1312 Hellman St. in Long Beach, and died at 1:55 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 18.
He was in the back of their house. An acquaintance with whom he had quarreled previously was hiding in the bushes. He jumped out and attacked Afualo with a knife, said his older sister, Cheryl Ulugia. "I got there and he wasn't moving," she said. "I was calling the police, and at the same time, I was using the light from my phone to see him and where he was hurt, and he wasn't moving." Police arrived and found the suspect nearby, and arrested him, she said.
Afualo had come from American Samoa with his siblings in the early 1990s, attended high school in Orange County, then quit to work in construction to help support the siblings' late grandmother, their one-time caretaker, the sister said. As a youngster he loved skateboards, she said. As he grew older, his family was his chief concern, she said.
Michael Pena, 17, a Latino youth, was shot multiple times at 1533 6th Ave. between downtown Los Angeles and the Wilshire area and died at 12:37 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 16.
Bobby Goodwin, 69, a black man, was struck in the head with a trophy, decapitated, and stabbed in a residence at about 7:20 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 16. in the 24200 block of Senator Avenue in the Harbor area, Los Angeles police said. His time of death was listed as 7:51 p.m. Aug. 16. His grandson, 23, was arrested in connection with the crime. They had quarreled prior to the stabbing, said Los Angeles Police Det. Louis Paglialonga. Goodwin died at the scene.
Dominicque Davis, 18, a black young man, was shot in the back at 100 E. La Verne Ave. near La Luna Way in Pomona at about 9:37 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 16. Police responding to several calls of gunfire found him wounded. He was airlifted to a trauma center in Los Angeles, where he died about an hour later.
Thomas Ruelas, 48, a Latino man, was stabbed twice in the abdomen at 923 East Hollyvale St. in Azusa and died at 5:05 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 15.
Bronwyn Sullivan, 28, a white woman, was strangled in a home at 2010 Garth Avenue in West Los Angeles. Police said the woman's husband, Virgil Leo Wagaman, 34, walked into the West L.A. station at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 15, and told police she was dead. They found her body and arrested him. There was a history of domestic violence in the marriage, police said. More to come.
Calvin Davis, 16, a black youth, was shot twice in the back and killed near the intersection of Andale Avenue and Ovington Street in Lancaster at about 7:43 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 15. His time of death was listed as 10:32 p.m.
Gregory Eversole, 29, a white man, was shot in the head at 21784 Laurel Rim Drive in Diamond Bar. Sheriff's investigators were called at about 4 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 15. His time of death was listed as 6:15 a.m.
Peter Rodriguez, 23, a Latino man, died just before 5 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 14, after being shot by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies during a shootout near the intersection of North Herbert Avenue and Whiteside Street in the vicinity of the 10 Freeway just after midnight.
Sheriff's deputies gave this account: Rodriguez was writing graffiti when two deputies surprised him. They ordered him to stop. He turned, dropped his spraypaint can and pulled out a gun in one motion, they said. He fired, blasting a hole in the back window of the patrol car, and the deputies shot back. Rodriguez was struck once; he was taken to a hospital, where he was listed in critical condition. He later died.
Brent McKinney, a 45-year-old black man, was shot and killed by California Highway Patrol officers at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 14, on the connector ramp between the eastbound Interstate 10 and the northbound Interstate 5 at South Boyle Avenue in Boyle Heights. The officers had faced off with the man at a homeless encampment under the freeway, where he had threatened them with a machete, CHP officials said. The man and the officers moved to the ramp, where both officers shot him.
Maria Hicks, 58, a Latina woman, was shot near the intersection of Woodford Street and San Gabriel River Parkway about 9:55 p.m. Friday, Aug. 10, and died of her injuries at a hospital three days later, Monday, Aug. 13.
Hicks was driving home and saw a Latino man or youth spray-painting graffiti, said Lt. Larry Lincoln of the Sheriff's Department homicide bureau. She honked her horn and flashed her lights and began to follow the fleeing tagger. Two Latino men or youths in a silver compact car pulled up and shot at her. She was struck in the upper torso. Three people were later arrested.
This post is the last in the weekly list of Los Angeles County victims based on coroner's records and police reports.
The Homicide Report is on vacation, and will resume Sept. 1. There will be only minimal posts during this period.
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(Marcia Holmes, left, Earl Ofari Hutchinson and Lita Herron at last Saturday's news conference calling for improved strategies to safeguard witnesses).
Sometimes big things start small.
Last weekend, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, and Marcia Holmes, whose daughter Ashley Cheval was murdered in LAPD's 77th Street Division last year, held a news conference in a room filled mostly with empty chairs.
The crowd was limited to three: HR, one television reporter and one camerawoman.
The KCAL-9 reporter had come to the Leimert Park gathering on Saturday mainly to get Ofari Hutchinson's response to a high-profile story that day: The pending closing of King Drew hospital. Ofari Hutchinson broached the second topic on the agenda almost apologetically, seemingly unsure whether the reporters would stay to hear it.
The topic was witnesses.
The activists were there to announce call for more resources and attention to the issue of witness protection.
As has been reported on this site in the past, the problem of witness cooperation is at the core of the national homicide problem.
There is perhaps no more important single impediment to the successful investigation and prosecution of the masses of murder cases than frightened or uncooperative witnesses. The scope and complexity of this problem cannot be overstated. "Colossal" is how Deputy Dist. Atty. Halim Dhanidina classified it in a Times story last year. "I don't think we have ever had a gang case where the specter of fear didn't raise its head for at least one witness."
Witnesses don't testify for many reasons. But fear is a central one. Their reluctance assures impunity for killers. And when killers get away with it, killing becomes that much easier the next time. The more murders, the more fear. The more fear, the less witness cooperation. The less cooperation, the more impunity. And so on. The result is a sclerotic criminal justice system in the very communities where crime hits hardest.
Police and prosecutors have fretted for decades over this problem. To hear it taken up by Ofari Hutchinson, one of L.A.'s most prominent black leaders, is a noteworthy moment in this city's racial history, even if only three journalists were there to see it:
Twenty years ago, such a news conference would have been unthinkable, Ofari Hutchinson acknowledged later.
"Twenty years ago, I would have said I don't want to talk about black-on-black violence. I want to talk about police-on-black violence. But this is 2007," he said. "Things have changed."
The activists called for more money, more publicity, and witness-security measures as effective as the federal witness protection program made famous by organized crime cases.
When it came to Holmes, who has been caring for her young granddaughter since her daughter was murdered, she looked steadily into the lone camera: "Where there are no consequences for crimes, what you get is absolute lawlessness," she said.
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The suspect in the July robbery murder of Pulod Davlatnazarov, 39, at the Limelight Liquor Store at 1649 La Brea Ave. is still at large. These video images capture his face.
Detectives released the video again Thursday in a renewed plea for tips on the suspect's identity and whereabouts. They said he walked into the Hollywood liquor store about 6:30 p.m. and went to the back, where Davlatnazarov, an immigrant from Tajikistan, was working in the stock room. In the course of the subsequent robbery, he shot Davlatnazarov in the head and killed him, and also severely wounded store clerk Vladimir Akkerman, 69. The suspect is 18 to 22 years old, about 5-foot-6 and 180 pounds with a short Afro and wire-rim prescription glasses. A $50,000 reward is pending. Anyone with information is asked to call LAPD detectives at (213) 972-2910, (213) 972-2913 or (877) LAWFULL.
Update: LAPD Hollywood detectives have cleared this case. Rodney Bourgeois, 18, who police call the Limelight liquor suspect, was arrested Aug. 25.
(HR has followed the aftermath of the murder of Dovon Harris, 15, struck by gunfire in Watts on June 15, 2007 and taken off life support a day later. In July, Barbara Pritchett, right, his mother, talked of her life one month after the murder. This week, which marks the two-month anniversary of her son's death, is not much different, she said.)
"I woke up with him on my mind. I'm going to go to the cemetery and just sit," Pritchett said Tuesday morning. She got some balloons and went by herself to place them at the spot where Dovon was shot, then headed to the gravesite.
Dovon's alleged shooter was arrested shortly after the killing. Since then, Pritchett said, police also arrested the driver of the car. The family has experienced their first court appearance--a highly stressful ordeal, she said. Pritchett quit her job after the homicide, and now stays home most days. Not so her teenage daughter, who continues working at the airport, despite tears that overcome her frequently. "It's still moment to moment, you know?" Pritchett said. "Today may be good, tomorrow may not."
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