Authorities are continuing to search for a suspect who shot and killed a developmentally-disabled teenager in South Los Angeles because he was wearing red shoes.
Tavin Price, 19, was shot four times in the back and chest on May 29 outside a car wash near the corner of Florence Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard. He was rushed to the hospital, but died while in surgery, according to his mother, Jennifer Rivers. Price reportedly weighed less than 100 pounds and was less than 5 feet tall. Investigators say he was murdered because the gunman was angry that Price was wearing red shoes, the color of which is associated with a specific street gang. Price was reportedly not a gang member.
Los Angeles police detective Eric Crosson, who is investigating the case, said that all that is known so far is that Price was getting his car washed.
Rivers said her son went inside the nearby store to buy a cigarette when he was approached by a man who asked that the teen remove his shoes. He reportedly walked back to the car and told his mother what the man had said to him. The suspect reportedly followed Price back to the car wash and shot and killed him. Rivers proceeded to briefly run after the man, but he escaped.
“I wish he would have just shot me instead of my child because that’s cold for a mother to watch somebody just gun her child down in front of her,” Rivers said. “That’s a hard, hard thing to deal with, believe me. I can’t even sleep at night since my son died.”
Police said there is surveillance video of the shooting; detectives are working on several leads but so far no arrests have been made.
A vigil was held on Monday at the car wash—ironically on what would have been Price’s 20th birthday. The group gathered around a small memorial to sing “Happy Birthday” and release balloons in his memory. A few LAPD detectives attended the vigil looking to speak with anyone who may have witnessed the shooting.
LAPD officers believe that eyewitnesses to the murder and the video will assist them in apprehending Price’s killer.
