Killing at the Carwash

911 emergency?

Gunshots on Florence at the car wash right off of Crenshaw.

"100% assassin.

"I kill."

That's what he had on his chest.

The gang situation in LA is very depressing.

I can only say that if I was a young black man,

I wouldn't live in Los Angeles.

You can get mistaken for anyone.

Just by the way you dress,

just by the way you look.

You might walk down the street and somebody might be at the corner and

they gonna ask you where you from.

You were right there with the victim that got shot,

was right there, next to you.

-I ain't saying nothing to you.

-You don't have to say nothing.

All right, then I don't have to say nothing.

GUNSHOTS

VOICE ON RADIO: What's going on? What's crack-a-lacking, my peoples.

I'm Jerry Quickley and this is happening.

MUSIC: For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield

# There's something happening here

# What it is ain't exactly clear

# There's a man with a gun in his hand... #

We're going to be talking about gun culture in Los Angeles

in these very, very scary times.

-CALLER:

-People are dropping like flies over here.

People are dying every day.

You walk out your house and pop-pop-pop.

We were going to get some pizza and go to the beach.

Tavin was really happy about that.

He said he wanted to take his feet out and walk in the sand.

Put his feet in the water.

So I was like, that's cool.

MUSIC: I Want You Back by Jackson 5

This is the block where we spent most of our, our childhood at.

Everybody on this block can remember my brother.

He was bad, you know what I'm saying? He was real bad.

And he would always run out the house, he'd tear the house up.

He didn't care.

If it didn't go his way, it wasn't going no way.

We was driving down Manchester and Tavin said, "Take me to that smoke

shop on Crenshaw. I need to get some cigarettes."

I was like, "I'll just buy you a pack."

"Nah, I just want four cigarettes."

So, I took him over there anyway.

And I always used to tell him,

"Them cigarettes going to get you in trouble.

And it cost him his life.

When I pulled in, I just pulled in and said,

"I might as well wash the car."

So I pulled in stall number three.

A friend of mine, she went to go get the cigarettes.

Tavin ran behind her.

Los Angeles, California is probably the only state that actually

divide gangs by colour.

The gang thing out here is...

..if you a Crip, you a Crip. If you a Blood, you a Blood.

Um, if you a Blood, you don't like Crips.

If you a Crip, you don't like Bloods. You know what I'm saying?

That's just how it go out here, they run off of colours.

So if you got red shoes on with red shoestrings in them,

the chances of you being a Blood, that's what they're going to think.

I was vacuuming the car when Tavin walked up

and told me what was going on.

He said, "Mommy, these guys banged on me."

And I said, "Well, who banged on you?"

He said, "Some boy in the smoke shop."

And that's when I said,

"Well, you know what, Tavin, let's go."

Cos ain't nobody around here ever banged on you,

so let's get up out here cos that's not cool.

I heard something say, "Pop-pop", I was talking to Tavin,

his head was bent in the car

and he has his cigarette like this when he hit it.

And all of a sudden I heard something say, "Pop-pop".

The cigarette dropped

and his eyes went.

And I say, "You just got shot?"

And he...

And I see some legs right there and I was like,

"Oh, my God, you just got shot."

I raise up, I say, "You just shot my son?"

And the boy shot him two more times in the heart.

I was like, "You motherfucker."

Those were my exact words.

911, emergency, 671.

Did you see who shot him?

I ran around the car,

I grabbed Tavin, I laid him on the back-seat.

He said, "Mommy, am I going to be all right?

"I'm not going to die, am I?"

I was like, "No, Tavin, you going to be all right.

"You going to be all right."

And he said, "I can't breathe."

And that's when Officer Roberson pulled up.

And I said, "They just shot my son."

And he threw his bike down and he grabbed Tavin.

He threw off his helmet and he...called for backup.

He tried to help my son, but...

911, emergency.

Hello?

The day that he got shot

I just kept telling myself,

"I wish it was me, why'd it have to be him?"

I was my little brother's protector

and he knew that.

We protected each other.

It was like we loved each other to death.

But we didn't... We didn't understand this part right here.

Once you go, how much you going to miss that person.

We didn't understand...

We didn't understand that.

And when I think back

on my mom telling me when he got shot,

his last words was, "I don't want to die.

"Am I going to die, Mommy?"

Most of our victims are gang members,

I'd say 90% of our cases involve gang member on gang member violence.

It doesn't matter to me what they were doing when they were killed.

They deserve the same level of investigation.

When we got there, all we knew was that

the victim's mother was still at the scene,

Jennifer Rivers was still there.

And that she had relayed information that somebody inside the smoke shop,

there at the car wash, had inquired about Tavin being a gang member.

And then shortly after that, the shooting occurred.

It's this area right here where the car was parked

and where he was found.

It's probably only the second or third case I've had where the...

The parent was a witness to the murder.

I only seen like a partial side of his face,

but I will never forget that face like that.

Like if you cover that up, I'll never forget that side.

At some level we form a relationship

with our victims' families, and really what it's about is bringing

them some sense of justice out of this whole senseless incident.

We have to take their phone calls and we have to

explain to them, "I'm sorry, I haven't solved your case yet."

Tavin, he loved shoes.

He loved them.

And he had just bought these red Chuck Taylor's

and I specifically told him that morning, I said,

"Tavin, take those red shoestrings out those tennis shoes."

I said "You know, people be thinking you a Blood or something."

He said, "I ain't no Blood, I wear whatever I want to wear."

And they knew he wasn't no Blood.

They knew that.

They was just punking him because they knew he had special needs.

You could look at Tavin and tell he... He had issues.

He happened to be at the ice cream truck,

my cousins were supposed to be watching him.

He got hit by a car, it was a man on his way to church.

He was speeding down the street

and the man hit my brother,

he flew I think about 50 feet in the air.

This is when he first got out the coma and he had just turned four.

He was still in the hospital when he turned four, that's him.

See him with his long pigtails?

When he got out the hospital from getting hit by the car,

they said that he was a walking miracle.

That he was supposed to have been a vegetable.

I just thank God that he still was able to walk

after he got hit by that car.

He went through a lot of trauma.

Honestly my brother, he had a mental issue from that.

But me being his brother,

I didn't think anything was wrong with him.

He was 20, but he never grew into 20.

He was 20, but he had the mind of a 12-year-old.

This is his actual size of his height.

That picture is 4"11 exactly.

4"11.5, 4"12.

Here, let me see.

-Yeah.

-So he was kind of small, right?

He was tiny just like this.

This is Tavin all the way right here.

When I say this is Tavin, this is my baby.

This is how he was.

This is his size, and this is how he stood to me.

In broad daylight,

in the middle of a location with so many witnesses and civilians around,

and he was only 19 years old, and he was developmentally disabled,

and he had done nothing to deserve what he did.

He just dressed the way he wanted to dress and, for that reason,

he really is one of what we would consider a true victim in the case

cos he did nothing to instigate this.

The events leading up to the shooting

and the shooting itself were all captured on video.

In this case, it was a high-definition camera.

Showing that video to some of our gang officers here at 77th

that were able to say, "I know this person to be Dwight Smith."

"I know this person to be Kevin Johnson."

You know? Or Bang and Tiny Manson.

That's the names they were going by.

But we really didn't know who our shooter was based on video.

Well, really, the biggest key for us was just trying to find

a cooperative eyewitness.

You know, we had no reason to think that, you know,

somebody didn't see the whole thing and know the parties involved.

But for the most part,

they weren't real cooperative in providing that information.

I went every night in the 60 Neighbourhood,

in the 58 Neighbourhood,

looking for those boys.

Literally myself,

with a gun. I didn't care.

I didn't care about the police looking for them.

I told the police, "You better found them before I do,

"cos I'm going to kill 'em, I'm going to blow their heads off."

People are frightened on these types of cases.

There were numerous witnesses

that did not want to be involved in the case at all.

Antheyst Jarrett was inside the smoke shop

in a conversation with Kevin Johnson and Dwight Smith

a short time before the actual confrontation

between Dwight and Tavin.

On the video, she can be seen as Dwight begins to confront Tavin,

she walks out of the smoke shop as if,

"I don't want to be involved in what's coming next."

Later, when Ms Rivers is being interviewed by the police,

and she's giving the direction of she last the shooter as running,

and said he went into a house where some gang members may live.

And Antheyst jumped in and said,

"Why you gotta say it's the gang members, snitch?"

And confronted Jennifer about talking to the police.

And so that was what originally led us to Antheyst being involved.

Antheyst Jarrett has said it was her ex that did it, and then we had

somebody else that had called in and said that another witness told her

that it was Bone, and that was the nickname we knew for Kanasho Johns.

The video shows that you were actually outside

when the shooting took place.

You observed a male black that you knew to be Bone walking

southbound across Florence.

Do you remember that that was what happened that day, though?

And where was the last place you remember seeing Bone

before the shots were fired?

How long after you saw Bone did you hear the shots?

If somebody could shoot an unarmed 19-year-old, Tavin Price,

with special needs, who was all of five-feet tall and maybe 90 lbs,

you know, then who would really be safe from someone like that?

So it's important to get him in custody as soon as possible.

We're investigating the murder, OK?

We are talking to people that we believe

are involved in the murder in some way. All right?

I'm not saying you banged on that kid.

-Yeah.

-I'm not saying you shot that kid, OK?

But I'm saying you're involved in that murder. OK?

-I'm not involved in anything.

-All right.

Kevin Johnson was taken into custody,

and he was interviewed here at station.

He admitted to being at the car wash.

I'm going to be straight with you, all right?

-We're going to book you for murder today.

-Why?

Because we believe you're involved in this murder, OK?

We had him on video, we had him leaving the scene in his car,

and we knew which way he went,

which was consistent with picking up Kanasho Johns from the apartment

where he was staying and bringing him back to the scene.

If you see that camera, I don't be up there like that.

-So why don't you tell us the truth then?

-What's the truth?

That I don't have nothing to do with it? That's the truth.

I don't have nothing to do with it.

I'm about to get charged for something, I clearly didn't do shit.

Didn't have shit to do with nothing.

OK. I think the one thing you could do to clarify a lot of this is

you could separate yourself as a suspect by being a witness.

-Man, I don't know nothing about that.

-Oh, no, but...

-Before, you said...

-I'm not about to do nothing.

OK, who's the guy that ran by your car?

I don't have nothing to do with this shit, man.

-Cool.

-I know where I was at, man.

-I know...

-Yeah, you were right there with him.

The victim that got shot was right there next to you.

And I didn't say nothing to him!

Yeah, you didn't have to say nothing.

All right, then I don't have to say nothing.

-You're not going to say the truth?

-What's the truth?

That I don't have nothing to do with it.

That's all I know. I don't give a fuck about nobody else

and what's the fuck going on, but I know...

-Like my partner told you...

-I didn't have shit to do with that shit.

Well, here's your chance to separate yourself from all that

-by telling us who crossed the street.

-I don't know.

-OK.

SIRENS WAIL

My partner and I continued to drive through the neighbourhood

in the following days, and we observed Dwight Smith

not too far from the crime scene.

Dwight was standing in the driveway

right here, and...

Just stopped and looked at him, and just the look on his face,

we knew we... That was the right person.

We had to employ an FBI task force in order to try and get him located.

We had him identified,

we knew he was involved, we just had to catch him.

Every day for two weeks straight,

every day, in front of that car wash,

protesting, trying to get people to come out

and protest with me to catch who shot my son.

And then I got a call from Detective Crosson telling me they got him.

Oh, my God, I cried with joy.

I shouted, "I thank you, Jesus."

I was just so grateful that they caught this idiot.

I had control that day.

I should've made that decision not to go to that car wash.

So I feel guilty about that because I was the adult.

And I let him convince me to take him there.

I just regret it.

I feel like it was part of my fault.

I just miss my child a lot.

The boys, when they shot and killed my son, they killed me, basically.

Because I have to live with this for the rest of my life.

He told us everything that happened.

Kanasho did it. He said, "I saw him, you know, get out of the car,

"I saw him get out of the car that belonged to Kevin, you know,

"and walk and then I watched him go do the shooting,

"you know, then he ran away."

One of the reasons that witnesses refuse to speak with

or corroborate with police is because of fear of retaliation.

Fear of retaliation on the streets and while in custody.

Getting a conviction in exchange for having someone new injured or

possibly killed is not something to take lightly.

Victim of Crime relocated me right after the murder.

I moved out two days later.

After the killer's family found out where I was at, I panicked.

I was like, "Oh, my God, no, that's not happening."

I'm leaving because I had got so many death threats from

his friends, his family,

people coming to court threatening me and my family.

They literally harassed us every day.

By the grace of God, I'm right here.

This is my new house.

Finally.

They took his future away.

You know? They took something so sensitive, something so soft,

so precious.

They should feel like cowards.

You steal an innocent person's life,

to be thrown in jail for the rest of yours,

it don't make sense.

I miss you a lot.

You're still my baby.

I know you're in a better place.

I don't know if I can be at peace yet.

I'm trying to be at peace.

But it's so hard.

It's really, really hard.

All over these red Chucks right here.

These are Tavin's shoes right here.

These Chuck Taylors.

Are you scared to wear those shoes out and about?

Uh-uh.

I'm not scared at all.

These are my shoes.

They were Tavin's shoes.