Man (Adult) Shot, Area 6th/Walnut, Possibly Gang Related, In LB's 4th Shooting in Two Days (Two Fatal)
LBREPORT.com is reader and advertiser supported. Support independent news in LB similar to the way people support NPR and PBS stations. We're not non-profit so it's not tax deductible but $49.95 (less than an annual dollar a week) helps keep us online.
(June 8, 2015, 5:40 a.m.) -- Long Beach has had its fourth shooting in two days (two of which were fatal).
Initial information is sketchy. LBPD overnight Watch Commander Lt. David Faris tells LBREPORT.com that LBPD responded to a call of unknown trouble at 10:18 p.m. and found a male (adult) shooting victim in the area of 7th/Walnut. A crime scene was subsequently located in the 1600 block of E. 6th St. (near Walnut.)
As of dawn today (Mon. June 8), the victim is reported in critical but stable condition. LBPD is investigating the crime as possibly gang related.
Red Xs=2014 and 2015 murders to date; Blue Xs=2014 and 2015 shootings, person wounded; Brown Xs=shots fired at victim(s), not hit; Purple Xs=2014 shots at occupied residence/vehicle; Green Xs=shots at unoccupied vehicle/residence; Grey Xs=shots fired (no hit, no target identified); Orange X's=non-fatal stabbings. Map is unofficial. A separate map (not shown here) indicates add'l shootings in NLB.
[Scroll down for further.]
As separately reported by LBREPORT.com:
On Friday night June 5 at about 10 p.m., a man was fatally shot in the area of 17th/Alamitos (6th district) [LBREPORT.com coverage here.]
On Friday night June 5 shortly before midnight, a man was found fatally shot in the 5400 block of Elm Ave., two blocks west of Saturday's "Ciclovia" on Atlantic Ave. (8th district) [LBREPORT.com coverage here.]
On Saturday morning June 6 shortly after 4 a.m., a man was shot/wounded in the 1000-1100 block of Cedar Ave. in LB's historic Willmore City district (less than a mile north of LB's Civic Center) (1st district) [LBREPORT.com coverage here.]
All of the shootings are in districts of Councilmembers who voted less than a week earlier for a resolution urging people not to eat meat today ("Meatless Mondays"), some stating that the action would show the City's commitment to its residents health. (Vote was 7-2, with Supernaw and Mungo dissenting.)
In Sept. 2014, a Council majority approved without dissent, a FY15 (current) budget (recommended by both current Mayor Garcia and exiting Mayor Foster) that no longer funds LBPD's now-former field anti-gang unit. The field anti-gang unit previously deployed twenty officers plus two sergeants in gang impacted areas where they could interact with residents and gather intelligence. LBPD continues to maintain a conventional gang unit (often working indoors on investigations and the like) but L.A. County's second largest city no longer has the field anti-gang unit that LB taxpayers had until September 2012
[Scroll down for further below.
Advertisement
Advertisement
In August 2012, then-Mayor Bob Foster recommended a FY13 budget that proposed to eliminate the unit, and then-Vice Mayor Robert Garcia, chosen by Foster to chair the Council's Public Safety Committee, held no hearings on the public safety aspects of the Foster proposed budget. However the Council balked and voted to fund half of the field anti-gang unit using "one time" funds for a year.
A year later in September 2013, again with no hearings by Garcia's Public Safety Committee on the proposed budget, the Council failed to budget additional sums for the field anti-gang unit, which LBPD scrambled to maintain at a further reduced level by drawing officers from patrol and backfilling with overtime.
In July 2014, exiting Mayor Foster and entering Mayor Garcia both recommended a FY15 budget without funding for the field anti-gang unit. The Council's Public Safety Committee, now headed by Councilwoman Suzie Price (chosen by as chair by Garcia and endorsed for office by Foster) held no hearings on public safety aspects of the Garcia-Foster proposed FY15 budget (saying such an action would be "unprecedented.") In September 2014, the Council voted without dissent to adopt a FY15 budget that provided no funding for LBPD's field anti-gang unit.
