A 20-year-old former Long Beach City College football standout was found shot to death Wednesday morning near the drive-thru of a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant in Long Beach.
Officers received a call about 12:15 a.m. of a shooting near 52nd Street and Atlantic Boulevard and located the victim with gunshot wounds to his upper body, according to Lt. James Richardson of the Long Beach Police Department.
Guy Alford III, a former LBCC defensive back who played high school ball at Bishop Alemany High School in Mission Hills, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
“The victim was inside a blue Chevrolet Impala in a fast-food parking lot when the shooting occurred,” according to a Long Beach police statement.
Alford apparently got out of the car in the parking lot, then collapsed and died.
No suspect description was released.
Surveillance video from a nearby location shows Alford’s vehicle in the restaurant’s drive through lane when a second vehicle pulls up behind and three suspects get out, according to KCAL9, which reviewed the recording.
One of the suspects then goes to the driver’s side and appears to open fire. Alford then slumps to the side and four passenger get out of his vehicle. The three suspects then get back into their vehicle, which backs up and leaves the area, according to KCAL9, which reported that a camera positioned in the drive-through area was not working.
“You know, someone took my future from me,” his father said while grieving at the shooting scene. “I just come to look at the last place my son was at, that’s it.”
Alford’s LBCC online player profile states that he was an Inglewood native.
Alemany High School issued a tweet sending prayers to Alford’s friends and family.
The LBCC football program mourned his death on its Twitter feed in a posting that read: “A very sad day for our Viking family. Senseless violence. `May the choirs of Angels come to greet you Guy!’ Great team player but a better person! #StopThisNonSense Prayers go out to his family and friends from his LBCC family.”
The team’s defensive backs coach, Darnell Lacy, wrote on his page, “Tired of the cowards! This dude didn’t deserve this.”
Lacy told the Long Beach Post that Alford was hoping to transfer to a four-year school and continue playing football next spring. Alford’s father told the Post that his son was trying to finish his associate’s degree at LBCC, then pursue a nursing degree.
Former LBCC defensive backs coach James Wheeler wrote on Twitter that he coached Alford for two years and was “at a loss for words.”
“This was honestly a good, good kid and this one really hurts,” he wrote. “Praying for the Alford family.”