Thomas Breen photo
Mayor Elicker and Chief Dominguez at Tuesday’s police presser.
City police have arrested two local teenagers for two separate shootings that took place on the same day last month — with the conclusion that these acts of gun violence were retaliatory, and the hope that the arrests will have a calming ripple effect across the city.
Interim Police Chief Renee Dominguez and Capt. John Healy described those two arrests Tuesday afternoon during the latest crime-update press conference held on the third flood of police headquarters at 1 Union Ave. Click here to watch the full presser.
Dominguez said the arrests stem from two different shootings that took place on Oct. 26.
The first occurred that Tuesday afternoon at around 3:51. Police responded to Pond Lily Avenue in West Hills in response to a 911 call that a vehicle had pulled up and someone in the car had fired roughly eight shots at a nearby house.
Upon arriving, police found one fired casing in front of the home as well as an unoccupied vehicle that had been struck twice by gunfire, Dominguez said. She said the front of the Pond Lily Avenue house itself had been struck 10 times by gun shots.
“Bullets penetrated into the interior walls,” she said. The home was occupied at the time. “We do feel it was targeted. Thankfully, no one in the home was injured.”
The second shooting that day took place at around 10:54 p.m., Dominguez said.
Officers responded that night to a Diamond Street house. A ShotSpotter alert showed that eight rounds had been fired. An anonymous 911 caller reported four shots fired. A second caller stated that her window had been struck by gunfire.
Arriving officers found that a residential home on Blake Street “had been targeted and struck by gunfire,” Dominguez said. “It was occupied, and thankfully no one was struck inside.”
During the police officers’ canvas of the area, she said, they found nine .45 caliber shell casings.
Both cases were assigned to the city police department’s shooting task force, with Det. Francisco Sanchez taking the lead on the Pond Lily Avenue shooting, and Det. Elizabeth White taking the lead on the Blake Street shooting.
Capt. Healy: These shootings were related.
Healy said that the two detectives were able to “use evidence from the scene as well as through interviews with witnesses and the arrestees post-incident to establish probable cause” for arrests in both cases.
Police arrested a local 18-year-old for the Blake Street shooting. He has been charged with conspiracy to commit assault, criminal attempt to commit assault, unlawful discharge of a firearm, reckless endangerment, carrying a pistol without a permit, and having a weapon in a motor vehicle.
Police have also arrested a local 16-year-old for the Pond Lily Avenue shooting. He has been charged with criminal attempt to commit assault, conspiracy to commit assault, carrying a pistol without a permit, reckless endangerment, and unlawful discharge of a firearm.
“It does appear that these two incidents and related and retaliatory to one another,” Dominguez said.
Healy agreed. “They were retaliatory in nature,” he said.
Were these gang-related shootings? “I wouldn’t say gang,” Healy replied. “There’s definitely a group element with the kids involved.”
Police believe that this group has been involved with “some of the violence in the city” independent of these two shootings. “So these arrests we do think will quell some of that violence, and calm things down,” Healy suggested.
Police spokesperson Officer Scott Shumway said that both teens are now in custody for these alleged offenses. They have not yet been arraigned.
Ghost Guns On The Rise
Lt. Werner: Ghost guns now easier to find, build.
So far this year, Dominguez said, the city has seen 98 nonfatal shootings and 23 homicides. That’s compared to 96 shootings and 19 homicides at this time last year.
She said that police have seized 172 guns and made 166 gun-related arrests so far this year. That compares to 126 guns seized and 135 gun-related arrests at this point last year.
And she said that 11 of the guns taken off the street so far this year are “ghost guns,” while only 3 seized by this time last year were ghost guns.
What’s with the increase in ghost gun seizures? Is that a matter of more home-assembled, serial-number-less guns on the streets?
That’s right, Lt. Derek Werner said. Werner heads the city’s plainclothes division.
He said on Tuesday that ghost guns are “just more prevalent on the street now.”
Why is that? “They’re easier to obtain. More people are building these ghost guns, ordering them online, and selling them.”
“From what I’m seeing,” he continued, “it’s just easier to make them now, easier to find them, easier to build the guns.”
Thank you to the NHPD for arresting the alleged perpetrators of these shootings. Thank you to the anonymous callers into 911 for help in these shootings.
The family and friends of these young people should be given counseling from Yale Child Study Center, Ice The Beef should visit with their family and friends, a social worker or therapist who specializes in this kind of trauma and ptsd and conflict resolution counseling and support should help them work through their trauma and issues to address and resolve the conflict before someone else associated with these events retaliates again. If you know these folks, and you care about them, you should do everything in your power to help prevent any more violence associated with this event. If you are a religious leader associated with these folks you should approach the families and friends and ask how you can help support them to address their concerns. If you are a school that is associated with their friends or family members you should provide them a school social worker to discuss with their classmates how they can work through their feelings on the issues, and who they can reach out to for help, and what choices could they make that would prevent this type of event in the future. If we as a society intervene early and often to provide the support and resources to help resolve conflict in a positive and constructive way, instead of choosing violence, and we help folks deal with and process the trauma instead of letting it fester and cause destruction, we can prevent this event and others like it from continuing to ripple out through the community.