Murder trial opens for Long Beach man

Antonio Webb faces 25 years to life in fatal Channel Park shooting

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A jury heard testimony last week in the trial of a Long Beach man who is charged with the murder of 28-year-old Tyrenzo Brown outside the Channel Park housing complex in 2014.

Antonio Webb, 24, is on trial at Nassau County Court in Mineola, on second-degree murder and gun possession charges.

Webb and Brown were rivals for the affection of the same woman, according to Newsday, before Webb allegedly shot Brown to death just after midnight on Sept. 27, 2014.

The shooting occurred on Birch Court, outside the city’s federally subsidized Channel Park Homes, a few months after Webb had finished a four-year jail stint for the armed robbery and beating of a local Chinese food deliveryman.

Prosecutor Martin Meaney told jurors that another rival of Webb’s, Maurice Wilson, got into a heated dispute with a friend of Webb’s before the friend and another man opened fire, according to Newsday.

Meaney said that Wilson — who eventually became a witness for the prosecution, and was one of three people who identified Webb as the killer in court — told authorities that he, Wilson, shot back at Webb’s friend, Newsday reported.

Jeffrey Groder, Webb’s defense attorney, maintained that there was no forensic evidence linking Webb to the murder, and the prosecution was relying on witnesses whose testimony couldn’t be trusted, according to Newsday.

When the trial resumed on Tuesday, prosecutors said that two separate bursts of gunfire occurred the night of the shooting, and the second one resulted in Brown’s death. Veronica Dale, a bus matron for the Long Beach School District, testified that she was awakened by the sound of a gunshot early on the morning of Sept. 27, 2014, at her home on Centre Street. She said she looked out her bedroom window, saw two or three girls scatter, called the police and went back to sleep.

Long Beach police officer Brian Whales testified that he received a call reporting a gunshot at 2 Birch Court. “[My partner and I] conducted a walk-through for about 15 minutes,” he said, adding that he asked people nearby for information, but no one spoke. Whales found no evidence of gunfire, and he and his partner left.

Dale said she woke up a second time during the night to the sound of commotion outside. She looked out her window again and saw three figures — two she identified as “Tattoo” Ray, a locally known tattoo artist from Brooklyn, and Brown, and the third a man who looked like Webb.

She testified she saw the man who looked to her like Webb hold a gun out in front of him and fire, and then disappear. The figures were only in her view, she testified, for “mere seconds.”

Whales received a second call that night that a man had been shot, and he identified the victim as Brown when he returned to the scene. “I applied pressure to the gunshot wound,” Whales said.

Brown was taken in an ambulance with Whales to South Nassau Communities Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Jeff Groder, Webb’s defense attorney, asked Dale about the lighting at the time of the shooting, to which she responded that the scene was “not well lit.”

Dale said, however, that the lights in the area helped her identify “Tattoo” Ray and Brown. She added that the way the shooter was standing, the light did not help her identify him.

Groder pointed out that Dale had previously testified that she wasn’t sure if the shooter was Webb or another man.

After the shooting

Detective Gordon Torraville — who was responsible for the documentation of the crime scene — testified that he went to the scene six days after the shooting.

After he took photographs, Torraville said, an emergency services unit “scooped” debris from a sewer filled with water and vacuumed out the rest, with help from the Long Beach Public Works Department. The contents were pumped into a truck and driven to a facility where they could be sifted through. Three bullet casings were found.

Brown’s death shook the North Park community, amid a rash of shootings near Channel Park at the time.

Residents, clergy, community leaders and politicians gathered at 500 Centre St. on Oct. 2, 2014, for a rally in response to Brown’s death — hours after Webb was arraigned in Long Beach City Court. Local leaders called for a reaction from a community that they said had been complacent about gun violence for too long.

Joined by Police Commissioner Mike Tangney and Charles Ribando, an investigator from the Nassau County district attorney’s office, the crowd rallied in front of the Long Beach Housing Authority headquarters, shouting, “Enough is enough!”

They called on residents to share information with law enforcement, and fight the stigma against “snitching” that has allowed other violent incidents in the area to go unsolved.

Trial testimony continued on Wednesday. Webb faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of the top count of second-degree murder.