Residents call for end to gun violence at vigil

Long Beach police are investigating a shooting in the Channel Park Homes last Saturday that left one man wounded after more than 30 shots were fired.

The incident has a number of residents in the 130-unit complex and other parts of the city on edge. Residents reported hearing a number of shots, and said that some of the rounds entered two apartments and some cars in the area.

“They’re rattled and disturbed about what happened. They’re in disbelief, and that’s why everyone is banding together,” said Tisizele Scott, a community advocate and Channel Park Homes resident who organized a vigil on Tuesday in the complex with members of the clergy, Police Commissioner Mike Tangney and other city officials to promote unity and call on residents to come forward with information. Scott said that some residents fear retaliation if they do.

“… [B]y having this rally and sending him flowers to let him know that we’re concerned about his well-being, maybe it will defuse the situation,” Scott said of the victim. “Our area isn’t a bad area, and many people may come to think that it is, but we want to show that we do care about the lives of people here. It was an isolated incident … that’s not what we’re about.”

Tangney said that the shooting occurred just before midnight, when two gang members from Far Rockaway and Inwood came to Long Beach looking for the 26-year-old victim, who is also from Inwood. “Our early information is that it was actually over a girl,” Tangney said. “They came looking for the girl’s old boyfriend.”

According to police, when they arrived on the scene, officers found a man lying in the street at Sycamore Court and National Boulevard, two blocks north of City Hall.

The Long Beach Fire Department transported the victim, whose name was not released, to South Nassau Communities Hospital, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Two people with knowledge of the shooting said that the victim had been shot twice. No other injuries were reported.

Scott, who lives with her children and husband, told the crowd at the vigil that she was sitting at home when she heard, “pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.”