Slain youth pastor was doing 'everything right,' friends say
The 23-year-old youth pastor shot and killed this week in Venice was doing "everything right" and appears to have been the victim of random violence, friends and authorities said.
At a news conference to announce a $50,000 reward from the city, people who knew Oscar Duncan, a former football captain and homecoming king, said he was an upstanding young man.
“Anything else said about Oscar on a negative side is absolutely incorrect, wrong, 110%,” Pastor Michael Fisher said.
On Thursday morning, police retold the events that led to Duncan's fatal shooting. Lt. John Radtke said Duncan was in front of his home Monday when a group of people drove up in a white car. Radtke said Duncan was drawn to the car by comments made by someone inside before he was shot in the head. The suspects are believed to have been gang members, although Duncan had no ties to gangs or a criminal record.
That same night, Capt. Jon Peters added, a 14-month-old child was killed in Watts.
“It is senseless, unacceptable, and we will get those bad guys,” Councilman Bill Rosendahl said. He said he would present a motion to the L.A. City Council on Tuesday asking for the $50,000, and he expects that his colleagues will support it.
Meanwhile, members of Duncan’s family stood alongside officers, his mother nodding and tearing up as people spoke glowingly about her son.
“He went to work, he went to church, he went to get something to eat, and then went home -- the home that he’s been in his entire life,” said Erikk Aldridge, the Boys and Girls Club director who was Duncan’s boss. “So he wasn’t at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
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-- Matt Stevens
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