California Halloween shooting: Gangsters confused party for rival gathering and killed 3 innocent people in attack
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA: Long Beach Police have said that a fatal shooting at a 2019 Halloween party, leaving three people dead and nine injured, happened after gang members mistook the gathering for a rival gang. “We now know this was a pre-planned attack on what the suspects incorrectly believed to be a party of rival gang members. And I want to clarify that none of the victims at that party were gang members,” Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna said on Tuesday, September 8.
According to reports, October 2019's shooting at a home in the 2700 block of E. 7th Street in Long Beach killed 25-year-old Maurice Poe Jr., Ricardo Torres, 28, and 35-year-old Melvin Williams II. Following the crime, detectives launched an investigation and retraced the alleged killers’ steps in their three vehicles. They also examined security camera footage over the past months. And after gathering all the details, on September 3, authorities began issuing search warrants for the suspects. A total of 15 was executed, seven in Long Beach, and eight over a number of cities across the California state, PEOPLE reported.
Police arrested twelve people in the case, but eight of them were charged in connection to the shooting. The suspects’ names are - David Heng Long, Kaylin Thik, Ryan Sim, Jeremy Penh, Christopher Williams, Danny Sourn, Joshua Sam, and Grant Johnson. All of them are from Long Beach, as per a press release by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office. The official press release added that the suspects have been charged with three counts of murder and nine counts of attempted murder. They have also been accused of "gang and gun" allegations.
Ballistics stated that the alleged killers used three different guns for the crime. Also, the recent execution of search warrants found eight firearms, which included three "ghost guns” - meaning homemade firearm without any serial number. It has also been reported that since the suspects carried out the crime while gang members, they are also face death penalty or life imprisonment “without the possibility of parole if convicted as charged”.
One of the defendants, 20-year-old Long, was presented before the court on Friday, September 4, “and his arraignment was continued until September 11,” the press release stated. The arraignments for the other seven suspects were scheduled Tuesday, September 8.
The press release also stated that one of the suspects - Sourn - was already in police custody over a murder case that happened in 2018, while another one - Penh - is awaiting trial on an attempted murder case. The cases are unrelated to the Halloween party one.
In another incident, a citywide police scanner in Chicago claimed that two officers willingly let a gang shootout happen amid the violence and riots that sparked after the death of George Floyd. The scanner recording revealed that when the alert said, “There's gangbangers vs gangbangers. They're shooting across at each other”, one police officer responded: “Let 'em do it” while another said, “Let it be!"
A second alert was also raised regarding the shooting, but it was not immediately clear if the cops responded to the call or not. Meanwhile, the Chicago Police Department said, "The Chicago Police Department takes all allegations of misconduct by Department members very seriously. CPD upholds and honors the expectation of Departmental professionalism at all times. CPD has initiated an internal investigation into the audio remarks captured on the alleged CPD radio transmission. The investigation remains ongoing.”