A person has been arrested in connection with a shooting that left one man dead and another wounded on the Venice Beach boardwalk, the Los Angeles Police Department announced Sunday evening.
The male arrestee, a Venice Beach resident, was taken into custody about about six hours after the fatal early-morning incident and booked on suspicion of homicide, a spokesman for the LAPD’s Pacific Division said.
The name of the arrested person was not being disclosed, the spokesman said, citing an ongoing investigation.
Pacific Division officers responded to a report of shots fired in the 300 block of Ocean Front Walk at approximately 2:09 a.m., LAPD Sgt. Barry Montgomery said during a morning news conference at the crime scene.
When they arrived, witnesses directed the officers to two men who had been shot.
The first victim died at the scene after being treated by paramedics, according to the LAPD sergeant.
He was later identified as Jascent-Jamal Lee Warren, a 26-year-old homeless man, said Lt. Larry Dietz of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.
The second victim, a black man in his 40s, sustained a gunshot wound to the lower leg. He was transported to a local hospital with the non-life-threatening wound and was listed in stable condition, police said.
Based on a preliminary investigation, detectives believed that the shooting was triggered by “some sort of altercation” on the boardwalk between “locals,” according to Montgomery.
Magomedova.
The fight “escalated into a violent encounter with someone brandishing a handgun and committing this deadly crime,” he said.
It was not yet known, however, what originally sparked the altercation.
Witnesses told investigators they saw a Hispanic man fleeing the scene southbound on Speedway in a dark-colored SUV. A detailed description of the gunman has not been provided.
Friends of Warren said he went by the name “Shakespeare” because of his writings, and lived in the area.
One woman who knew him told KTLA that although the victim was homeless, he helped others. She described him as “inspiring.”
“He was helping everybody else, yeah, he was definitely helping everybody else. Just by leading by example was the main thing … just by watching the way he was doing it,” Mariah Magomedova said. “He was a doer, a teacher, an inspiration to actually keep my head up and not give up.”
The shooting occurred on a normally busy stretch of the Venice Boardwalk that is popular with tourists. A number of businesses, restaurants and hotels are in the area.
Investigators said there was a large crowd of people who were near The Cadillac Hotel when the incident occurred. Police have questioned those in the group, as well as some people who were at the hotel, in order to figure out what led up to the fight.
The arrestee’s case was expected to be presented to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office on Tuesday, the LAPD said.
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