Two alleged gang members arrested in slaying of Long Beach high school student [Updated]

Two reputed gang members were arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of an honors student after she left a homecoming football game Friday at Wilson High School in Long Beach, police said tonight.

Melody Ross, who was also a track athlete, was gunned down as she and her friends were leaving the game. Two men -- an 18-year-old and 20-year-old -- were wounded in the shooting, which occurred about  10 p.m. as crowds of students gathered near Ximeno Avenue and 10th Street.

[Updated 10:15 p.m.: Hundreds of people, including residents and students, joined the Ross family tonight for a candlelight vigil at Wilson High.]

The suspects are both 16-year-olds, one from the Long Beach, the other from Bellflower, the Long Beach Police Department said.  Their names were not released because they are minors.

The shooting shocked faculty and students at the campus, a diverse school that serves some of the city's most affluent communities.

Ross was dressed as Super Girl  for the homecoming game against Polytechnic High School, which was attended by a number of students decked out in costumes on the day before Halloween.

The day after the shooting, Ross' classmates gathered at a pedestrian crossing along Ximeno near the football stadium exit to leave flowers and light candles by the curb where she was shot. They hugged each other, and some sat against the school fence or on the grass with their heads down, pondering the loss of a friend they described as polite and well-liked.

-- Robert J. Lopez

Photo: Candlelight vigil. Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Kim]

If these two "boys" felt that they were old enough to carry weapons, then they should be tried as adults and their names released to the public. Thanks LBPD for your diligent work in bringing the perps to justice. Rest in peace Melody. My condolences to the Ross family.

Long Beach need to be cleansed of all gang bangers. Enough is enough.

[Verballistic]

These two gangbangers need to be tried as adults and receive the absolute maximum sentence available...otherwise future gunslingers will only realize the system is not serious about stopping this insanity!!

Another key facet in dealing with this utter madness is to toughen the laws, so that the future consequences will provide even more of a deterrent...

[new2you]

coward gangsters coward gangsters coward gangsters coward gangsters coward gangsters coward gangsters coward gangsters

[Sheba]

I am happy that these misguided youths were caught. I hope that they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law. I see that God is bringing swift judgement against these youths. I hate that they have made another mother have to cry and bury her child. Murder affects everyone involved. This action does not make you a man, it only protrays you as an animal. It protrays you as someone who lacks self-control. These actions make you seem inhuman. I pray that the God of heaven will save your souls.

[Erich]

If you are a gang member and alleged murderer you should have your name released no matter you're age.This is a lame law and/or policy.

R.I.P. Melody

[Walt]

You liberals let this human garbage run wild in our society and you all have blood on your hands, you are enablers of the worst kind and deserve to be locked up with them

[Phil]

Low Life Coward Gang Scum Hiding behind guns so common in the Latino culture and just excepted when will some real action be taken against gangs? these littile cockroaches shoud get the death penalty carried out swiftly. i'm sure their parent knew they were gang members they should pay also.

[david]

Try them as adults and the execute them

[Alex]

Walt, you are truly an idiot. What in God's name does liberalism or conservatism for that matter have anything to do with two 16 year-old gangsters roaming the streets looking for victims? Within your feeble mind's frame of reference, are there super-hero Limbaugh's and Beck's running the streets, rounding up would-be crooks before they commit their crimes?

While you fantasize with Ann Coulter, people grounded in reality will have to figure out a way to prevent senseless tragedies like this from happening again and again...

[yme]

" This action does not make you a man, it only protrays you as an animal. " Please stop comparing these idiots to animals, it's an insult to the animal kingdom. Animals kill for food or defense.

[Rich]

Hey Walt; I've got news for you, the real problem with senseless murder is guns; not gangbangers, although I have no soft spot for them either; they should be rounded-up and locked away for life. It's lunatics like you who hold gun ownership as a more sacred right than the right to safety. It's more important for some red-neck hunter to be able to blow the brains out of a deer; than to protect our children who walk our streets each day. Until neo-cons like yourself wake up and realize that urban violence and murder will never be stopped or lessened until stricter gun laws are enforced; then innocent children will always be murdered in America, a proposition that apparently is okay with you and the rest of the nut-job right wingers.

[Frank]

Two words for the gangs: Final Solution.

[Sal]

Of course this has nothing to do with the mental midgets at the NRA who insist that there are enough guns for both the left and right hands of every man, woman and child, with enough left over for trainloads to export to all corners of the earth.

Guns don't kill people - people do - at least people who can hurl objects at nearly the speed of sound.

[Daria]

How dare these two kids take that promising young life and leave her to die on a dirty sidewalk like her life meant nothing! Watch. We will see the mothers or family member of the gangbangers, proclaiming their innocence in 1...2...3...

[Robert]

I want to see those two kids be punish, but at what extent? they are misguided and deserve some mercy. Its not my place to say,

RIP melodie