Three people were killed and four others were wounded when a brawl escalated into a shooting at a bowling alley in Torrance , authorities said Saturday.
Just before midnight Friday, officers responded to a shots-fired call at the Gable House Bowl at 22501 Hawthorne Blvd. and located several people with gunshot wounds, according to Sgt. Ronald Harris of the Torrance Police Department.
Three men were pronounced dead at the scene and two others were taken to a hospital for treatment of their injuries, Harris said. Two other men sought medical attention on their own.
One witness, Dana Scott, told reporters a group of women got into a fight inside the building, then some men got involved and about a minute later, gunshots erupted.
Another witness, who refused to give his name, told the Los Angeles Times that a fight erupted and he heard nine gunshots.
Wes Hamad, a 29-year-old Torrance resident, told ABC7 that he saw a “huge fight” break out that lasted about five minutes, blocked the entrance of the bowling alley and devolved into “complete chaos.”
“I grabbed my niece and started running toward the far end of the bowling alley,” he said. “As we were running, we heard 15 shots.”
Family members identified the fatal shooting victims as Michael Radford, 20; Robert “Tank” Meekins, 28 and Astin Edwards, 28.
Meekins leaves behind a 5-year-old son.
“When I go home and tell him that his daddy’s not coming back, it’s going to break his heart because he’s a daddy’s boy, always has been,” Meekins’ mother Anglean Hubbard told NBC4. “And I wonder the person that sat up here and took all of these people’s lives, how is he sleeping? How is he dealing with that? He done took somebody’s father. Somebody’s son. I just want justice for my son and all the people that was in there.”
Relatives of all three victims told the Daily Breeze they believed the men were killed while trying to break up the fight.
No employees were injured, Harris said.
A detailed description of the suspected shooter or shooters was not available.
Anyone with information about this incident was asked to call the Torrance Police Department at (310) 328-3456.