Skid row murder-for-hire plot leaves two dead, LAPD says [Updated]
Following a double homicide in downtown's skid row Easter Sunday, Los Angeles police have named three people in connection with what they described as a murder-for-hire plot to eliminate a rival drug dealer.
“The murder was motivated by narcotics,” said LAPD Capt. Blake Chow. “It was murder for hire. One drug dealer trying to murder the competition,” he said.
Police had arrested Shanana Flores, 33, on an unrelated narcotics charge June 27. Chow said Lamont Ward, 40, of Inglewood used Flores to hire another man, Richard Luna, to carry out the murder.
Luna, 28, is an East L.A. gang member who has been in custody since May 10 on an unrelated weapons charge, Chow said. Ward was arrested July 1 in Inglewood. Police said he was arrested while working as a security guard in an upscale gated community.
Chow said Luna is believed to be the gunman who killed Tommie Hayes, 33, and Kevin Cohen, 49, inside the Lamp Lodge about 5 a.m. on Easter Sunday near the intersection of Stanford Avenue and East 7th Street. Neither of the victims were living at the lodge, police said. [Update: Los Angeles County coroner's officials gave Hayes' age as 27.]
Hayes was the intended target, but Cohen was also killed, police said.
“We may never know for sure how or why Cohen was shot,” said LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon. The double homicide was downtown's first killing this year and the only murder on skid row since June 2008.
-- Ari B. Bloomekatz
