LBPD Public Information Officer Jennifer De Prez tells LBREPORT.com that at about 9:15 a.m. June 18, officers responded to a residence in the 1400 block of Cedar Avenue regarding a report of a shooting victim. "Upon arrival, officers located an adult male victim with a gunshot wound to his upper torso who reported he was outside near his vehicle when he was shot at by an unknown male adult suspect."

LBFD transported the victim to a hospital in stable condition; the suspect is outstanding; the motive for the shooting isn't currently known and LBPD Gang Unit is investigating (now routine in LB non-fatal shootings.)

The shooting occurred in LB's Washington Middle School neighorhood where just four days earlier (June 24) families (adults and children) using nearby "Seaside Park" (1400 block Chestnut Ave.) witnessed a shooting saw residents (and later LBPD officers) performing live saving measures on Jose Rodriguez, 23, of Long Beach. Mr., Rorriguez later died in a hospital.

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In November 2020, residents of the area and nearby neighborhoods will choose a LB School Board representative. To LBREPORT.com's knowledge, neither of the two runoff candidates, Tonia Reyes Uranga and Erik Miller, have (thus far) urged the LB City Council to restore funding for LBPD's field anti-gang unit. (Several Council incumbents have endorsed Mr. Miller; Ms. Reyes Uranga is the spouse of Council incumbent Roberto Uranga). Neither of the Scholl Board candidates has publicly opposed calls by some to "defund" or reduce funding for police or to eliminate school campus safety personnel and reallocate those budgeted sums elsewhere.

The area the School Board runoff candidates seek to represent includes Washington Middle School (whose surrounding neighborhood has been plagued by multiple shootings); Poly High (where parents cited on campus violence/bullying after a 2019 video surfaced of the off campus beating of a special-ed student) and Cabrillo High (from which Keshawn Brooks, 15, was walking home when a gang member stabbed him to death in a robbery.) A 2018 drive-by shooting that killed a grandfather in the neighborhood adjacent to Cabrillo High has also been attributed to on-campus gang activity.

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LB's 1st district (and adjacent 6th district) have for years experienced disproportionate levels of shootings and homicides compared to other parts of Long Beach. The 1st district's Council incumbent (since Dec. 2019) is Mary Zendejas, elected in a November 2019 no-runoff special election backed by large financial contributions from the LB Police Officers Ass'n PAC, Mayor Robert Garcia and immediate past 1st dist. Council incumbent (now state Senator) Lena Gonzalez.

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As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, the leadership of the LB police officers union didn't oppose erasing roughly 20% of LB's police level during the 2009-2014 economic slowdown and hasn't called for restoring funding for LBPD's former field anti-gang unit or any other number of roughly 180 officers erased but not restored for taxpayers to date.

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