Dispatch: “I’ve been scared...they’ve seen as much as I’ve seen.”
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Just after midnight on Sunday April 26, Nimo Sega, 10, stood at the door to his apartment and watched as a gunman shot his mother’s fiance in the chest on the front porch of their building in the 1100 block of Orizaba Ave. in Long Beach.
Fatally wounded, Kahari Wimberly, a 31-year old black man, ran around to the back entrance of the apartment building. Nimo’s mother, Aliska Tabbytite, said she believes he did so to keep the attacker from following him through the front door and into the apartment where he had been watching her two young sons.
When Wimberly reached the back door, he collapsed into the arms of a Tabbytite’s cousin, Ruben Larry. Wimberly was taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center where he was pronounced dead, said Long Beach homicide detective William Matusbara.
Since the shooting, neither Nimo nor his 9-year old brother Paul has returned to their home. Their mother -- unsure of who or why someone may have targeted their family -- sent her boys to stay with a cousin in Los Angeles.
‘I’ve been scared,’ Tabbytite said. ‘I figure they’ve seen as much as I’ve seen.’
The children’s school keeps calling, asking why they have not been in class. But Tabbytite said she isn’t ready for them to return to Long Beach.
Her older son Anthony, who lives with his father in San Bernardino, has taken the killing the hardest. His 16th birthday was on Thursday, May 7, the day of Kahari’s funeral.
‘They were like father and son,’ said Anthony’s friend Addy Ajijolaiya, 15.
The orange porch on Orizaba Ave. was unusually quiet the night Wimberly was shot. Often on weekends local teenagers and neighbors gather there. On the night of the shooting, a Sunday, only Wimberly and one other adult were outside. Neighbors said a man walking by fired five shots at close range. One bullet hit Wimberly in the chest.
Wimberly’s killing came just three weeks after Tabbyite’s father died in the same apartment of natural causes. A year ago Christmas Eve her mother died of an artery rupture. Before her mother’s death, Tabbytite, a Comanche Indian from Oklahoma, worked at a mortuary. But after her mother died, Tabbytite couldn’t take working there anymore.
Her father’s only child, Tabbyite said he was protective of her but liked Wimberly. ‘My dad would say, ‘He helps you. He wants the best for you’,’ Tabbytite said.
When her father died, Wimberly was very emotional about his death, she said. The celebrated Easter with a bonfire in the common backyard of their apartment complex to take their mind off the loss. This is one of the last memories Tabbytite has of Wimberly.
‘Everyone knew him by his smile. He was always smiling,’ she said. ‘We always have a house full of kids. He was like a big brother. Kids [from the neighborhood] would help around the house.’
Although they liked their neighbors, Tabbyite said they had planned to move away from their Long Beach neighborhood to start their lives together as a couple.
‘We just wanted a whole change,’ Tabbytite said. ‘We were working on a baby.’
Det. Matusbara said police have no suspects or possible motive in the murder. In 2006, Wimberly pleaded guilty to sale of a controlled substance and was sentenced to six years in prison, according to Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney. Court records indicate he had previous criminal cases involving drugs.
Long Beach police had most recently arrested Wimberly on March 5, according to county jail records which indicate he was released nine days later.
Tabbyite said he had been unemployed since his release.
Wimberly is survived by a sister, brother-in-law, two nieces and a nephew.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact Matsubara or Det. Todd Johnson at (562) 570-7244.
Top photo: Kahari Wimberly. Credit: family photo