INGLEWOOD, Calif.–A shooting outside an Inglewood liquor store early today left a 22-year-old man dead and a woman hospitalized with several gunshot wounds.
The shooting at Gins Liquor Store near 110th Street and Crenshaw Boulevard was reported at 12:28 a.m., Inglewood police Sgt. James Kirk said.
Shawn Bryant of Hawthorne, his girlfriend and several family members went to the liquor store for meter change, NBC4 reported. They were going to the beach to celebrate a birthday when two men robbed the group.
“We parked in the back because someone had to use the restroom at the liquor store and my nephew parked on the side and they robbed us,” the victim’s aunt, Trezil Houston, told NBC4.
“Two of them came with gunpoint and robbed us, told us to give them everything, to lay down on the ground and then five seconds later we gave them everything, cooperated and they took our car keys and threw them and said ‘In two minutes come and get your keys,’” Houston said. “As soon as they ran, five seconds later, we heard gunshots and that’s when they killed my nephew.”
Bryant was shot on the side street, then ran inside the liquor store, NBC4 reported.
He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics, police said.
The investigation was ongoing and it was unclear what the motive was behind the shooting, Kirk said.
The woman, whose name was not released, was rushed to a hospital with several gunshot wounds, Kirk said. She was expected to recover from her injuries.
Bryant’s mother, Cunnetta Sims, received the call that her son had died, Sims told NBC4.
“(The call) was from my older son, he called me, he said ‘Mom’ and then he started crying and I knew that it had to be his brother because I got two older sons and have one younger … and he said, ‘Mama he’s dead.’” Bryant wanted to go into business management and his girlfriend wanted to become a nurse, according to NBC4.
“They got together (and) said they had goals,” Sims said. “She wanted to go into nursing and be an RN and he wanted to be in business management. They got together and they both did it. They got jobs, they worked, they got their place. Even when they got their place the managers tried to give them a messed up apartment, they went back, they fought, they cleaned the apartment, man, he was struggling.”
The suspects were described as two Black men last seen running away from the location, Kirk said.
Houston told NBC4 that the men were in their mid to late 20s, about 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing about 180 pounds. She described one as having a light complexion and another with a dark complexion.
“I’d say they’re cowards, cowards. They walked up to my son and shot him in the chest, then shot him in the back and we don’t even know why,” Sims said when an NBC4 reporter asked what she would say to the men who shot her son. “You took an innocent life, a 22-year-old young man and man, no mother who goes through this thinks it could ever happen to you. You hear about it but you never think it could happen to you.”
“My son’s laying dead on a liquor store floor and they’re just treating him like a piece of meat, you know, because he’s evidence so he’s been there for seven hours,” Sims said.
