The Board of Supervisors renewed and reinstated $10,000 rewards Tuesday in two unrelated shootings that took the lives of a 15- year-old Gardena middle school student and a 22-year-old former Long Beach City College football player.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas recommended reinstating a reward that had expired July 9 for information leading to the killer of 15-year-old Mark Tyree Jr., who was set to start ninth grade at New Millennium Secondary School when he was gunned down in Westmont last summer.
About 8:10 p.m. on June 26, 2016, the teen was talking to a friend while standing in a driveway in the 1300 block of West 92nd Street when someone opened fire from the front passenger window of a passing gray Chevrolet Camaro. Mark died at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.
Investigators believe the shooting may have been gang-related, but said neither the teen nor his friend were gang members.
“They were just two kids hanging out in front of a residence,” sheriff’s Lt. John Corina told the Los Angeles Times.
Anyone with information was asked to call sheriff’s Sgt. Domenick Recchia at (323) 890-5500.
Ridley-Thomas also recommended extending a reward, set to expire Wednesday, in the shooting death of Kejon Atkins.
Late on the morning of July 23, 2015, Atkins, known as Wayne, was walking along the 1800 block of East 126th Street when a gold or silver four- door sedan pulled alongside and a man opened fire through the car’s rear window. He was taken to St. Francis Medical Center and died four days later.
Ridley-Thomas said Atkins had been planning to re-enroll in school and get back on the football team in the fall semester.
The gunman was in his late teens to early 20s, with several tattoos on his back. Two or three other men were believed to have been in the car, which was last seen going west on El Segundo Boulevard. Surveillance cameras captured images of the car as well as a two-tone, maroon/gray SUV, possibly a Pontiac Aztec, which might have been following along.
Anyone with more information was asked to call Detectives Theodor Baljet or Troy Ewing at (323) 890-5500 or Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-TIPS (8477).
—City News Service