Crime & Safety
At Vigil, Channel Park Residents Recall Bullets Hitting Homes
LBPD Commissioner Tangney indicated Saturday evening shooting was gang-related.
Tisizele Scott organized and led a candlelight vigil for unity throughout Long Beach outside her home at the Channel Park Homes public housing development Tuesday evening, near where a round of bullets were fired and a man was wounded late Saturday evening.
“Long Beach is a place of safety,” Scott said as she recalled listening to the gunfire from her home. “So when this occurred it disturbed me.”
Scott, who was joined by about 60 residents and city officials, including Long Beach Police Commissioner Michael Tangney and City Manager Jack Schnirman, as well as Pastor Delores Miller, founder of the neighboring Evangel Revival Community Church.Residents who had stray bullets hit their homes took the spotlight at the vigil, including Erica Thomas, a Sycamore Court resident. Thomas said that at the time of the shooting, about 11:55 p.m. on Nov. 2, she was home with her two children, ages 11 and 2, and three bullets penetrated inside. “All it takes is one bullet,” Thomas said. “My daughter could have been dead.”
Soon after the shooting, Long Beach police officers found a 26-year-old Inwood man with a gunshot wound lying in the road at 1 Sycamore Ct., near National Boulevard and West Fulton Street. The man was transported to South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside for non-life-threatening injuries. After police established a crime scene, they recovered two rifles and 31 shell casings of varying calibers near the area of the shooting. Police said they have a person of interest in their ongoing investigation.
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At the vigil, Long Beach Police Commissioner Michael Tangney said police believe they have identified a gunman. “We have been working very diligently with parole,” he said. “We do believe we know who the subject is. We’re trying to get an ankle bracelet placed on him tomorrow when he shows up for his hearing and he’s barred from Long Beach.”
Tangney, who said that police had received information almost in time to prevent the shooting, urged residents to be the “eyes and ears” of the community and to assist police, noting that if the see anyone in the neighborhood who “doesn’t belong,” that they can call police with complete anonymity. “Because the two bad guys that got hurt were both from Far Rockaway and Inwood,” he said. “They’re gang members.”
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Immediately after Tangney spoke, Pastor Miller stepped up to say that she would snitch to protect her daughter and two grandchildren who live in the area. “I will snitch because I don’t want my grandchildren laying up in a coffin somewhere because I did not open my mouth,” Miller said.
“Everyone is always talking about how bad this community is,” he said. “You have a lot of good people in this community that I see with my own eyes going to work every day. And it’s not fair to them to have a cloud put over their head because a few knuckleheads run around here and do nonsense. We can’t have that black cloud over all of these innocent, hardworking people and their children’s heads.”
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