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NYPD detectives in L.A. investigating Manhattan shooting

By Kate Mather
 and Tina Susman
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New York Police detectives flew to Los Angeles to investigate the slaying of 31-year-old Brandon Woodard, who was killed this week on a busy Manhattan street when a man fired a single shot at his head.

The NYPD investigators are seeking more information on Woodard’s background and his associates, several law enforcement sources told The Times.

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So far, police said they don’t have a clear motive for Monday’s shooting and hope the Los Angeles trip will shed more light on his recent activities, sources said.

Woodard grew up in Ladera Heights, played basketball at the exclusive Campbell Hall private high school in Studio City and graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 2003. His stepfather, Rod Wellington, said in an interview Tuesday that Woodard was pursuing a law degree at the University of West Los Angeles School of Law (school officials would not confirm if he was enrolled).

But court records revealed a more complex picture. Woodard has been arrested at least 20 times, according to New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. The arrests include charges of cocaine possession, grand theft and battery against a former spouse.

It was not clear what brought Woodard to New York after he purchased a one-way ticket from California, Kelly said, or where he was going when he left a hotel. Woodard checked into the hotel Sunday and checked out about 1:15 p.m. the next day.

He told his mother he expected to be home Monday.

Police on Tuesday released surveillance video that showed the 31-year-old Playa Vista man walking down 58th Street near Columbus Circle in Midtown Manhattan. A man standing near a Lincoln sedan pulled a hood over his head as Woodard passed. A short time later, the two passed each other a second time. The man turned, pulled out a gun and shot Woodard at close range in the back of the head with a 9-millimeter pistol. He got back into the Lincoln, which pulled away.

Commissioner Kelly said Monday’s crime was particularly surprising, given such a public setting. ‘You can characterize it as either being brazen or foolhardy,’ he said.

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-- Andrew Blankstein and Kate Mather in Los Angeles and Tina Susman in New York

L.A. Now
Kate Mather

Kate Mather covered crime, policing and breaking news across Southern California before leaving The Times in 2018 to attend law school. A native of Lawrence, Kan., she studied journalism at USC before first joining The Times in 2011. Mather was part of the team of reporters that received a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, as well as the team that was a Pulitzer finalist for its reporting on a deadly 2014 rampage in Isla Vista, Calif.

Tina Susman

Tina Susman, an Oakland native, is a former New York-based national correspondent who joined the Los Angeles Times as Baghdad bureau chief in January 2007. She got her start as a foreign correspondent with the Associated Press in South Africa, covering the end of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela. Dubbed by past editors “the master of disaster,” she has also worked in west Africa and done stints in Europe, Asia and Haiti. She is thrilled to now be in a city with quirky features, non-stop news, and functioning phones and electricity. She left The Times in 2015.

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