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Neighborhood Mourns
Residents say gunmen who killed three at party gave no warning, fired indiscriminately
By FRANCIS McCABE
REVIEW-JOURNAL
There was no warning, just gunfire and bloodshed.
Five or six gunmen hid behind an inflatable bounce house filled with children at the seventh annual Berkley Square block party Sunday and unleashed a barrage of bullets into an unsuspecting crowd of hundreds about 5:43 p.m., witnesses recalled Tuesday.
On the sidewalk and street in front of Anthony Mason's home at 513 Frederick Ave., three people were slain, and four others suffered nonlife-threatening wounds.
The gunmen were teenagers angered because they had been asked to leave the family event, Mason said.
"I had asked them to leave because they were causing trouble," he said. "They were getting loud and saying 'north-side niggas aren't supposed to be over here.' I told them this was a family party, not a gang-banging thing. I told them to take it somewhere else. They left after that."
Some heard them defiantly say they would come back, Mason's wife, Sheila Mason recalled.
The gunmen soon sneaked over a wall and found cover behind the bounce house across the street from Mason's home, witnesses said. "Nobody saw it (the shootings) coming," Sheila Mason said.
"Those people who were killed, they didn't do nothing," Anthony Mason said.
"This wasn't black-on-black violence. There were all types of people at the party: black, white, Hispanic, Asians. They (the shooters) were just trying to make a name for themselves."
Anthony Mason had invited 24-year-old Steven "Goldie" Beck to the party to learn more about low-rider cars. Beck died on the sidewalk, blood pouring from his head, Anthony Mason said.
"I was standing over Goldie," he said. "I kept wiping the blood off his face. He couldn't breath, so I turned him over on his side, and he started spitting up blood."
Beck soon stopped coughing. "His eyes were open. He was just staring at me," Anthony Mason said, shaking his head as he stared at three memorials honoring Beck and the two others who died in the shootings. "I'm all out of words."
The Clark County coroner's office identified Beck and 41-year-old Tina Robles of Las Vegas as two of the victims. The third victim, a man, was not identified by authorities on Tuesday.
About 60 people attended a candlelight vigil for the three victims Tuesday evening in front of Mason's home.
People sobbed and hugged as red and white wax dripped on the street where blood had soaked the asphalt Sunday. Friends of the victims and survivors, with several police officers, gathered to pay their respects.
"It's just crazy," said Jan Carroll, a mother and resident of Berkley Square who attended the vigil. "How they can take something so positive and turn it to sadness. And for what?"
Adolph Robles, Tina Robles' husband, attended the vigil. After walking to the makeshift memorial in the middle of the street to pay his respects, he observed the rest of the vigil from a chair, surrounded by people who expressed their sorrow over the slayings.
The coroner's office said Tina Robles died from a gunshot wound to the head.
Friends at the vigil said Germar Samuel was the third victim. Samuel, a man in his mid-twenties, had grown up in Berkley Square, friend Karl Cage said.
"When I heard he was shot, I ran up here to be with him," Cage said. "He was still fighting."
The first paramedics on the scene helped Robles and said her head wound was more serious, Cage said.
"I didn't understand that," Cage said, recalling how he told his friend to keep "breathing and fighting." Cage knew his friend was alive because he would gulp for air.
"He was a real fun guy. He liked to fix up cars and play Madden," a football video game, Cage said.
He said he had not slept since watching his friend die. "How do you sleep after seeing your best friend like that? Forget friend, he was my brother."
"He was just a great person to be around," Damare Johnson, 22, said with tears in his eyes. Johnson said that though the victim had moved away from the neighborhood more than a month ago, he still had strong ties to the community.
Johnson said he was surprised that the night had turned deadly because the neighborhood gathering was usually peaceful and closely watched. "It's usually policed really well," he said.
Capt. Gary Schofield, leader of the Bolden Area Command and one of the officers who attended the vigil, condemned the shooting while praising residents of the neighborhood.
"Those people have been working to improve that neighborhood, and they have done a remarkable job keeping violence out of there," Schofield said.
"These people said 'We don't want trouble,' and the response was to come back and shoot it up," the captain said. "The people are fed up and tired of it.
"I've worked a lot of homicides, and in 20-plus years this is the most brazen amount of violence I have seen," Schofield said.
Anthony Mason said earlier that police had done everything right on Sunday. There was a police presence at the properly permitted block party, he said. "They were there right when the shooting started" and were quick to help the wounded, he said.
One of the survivors of the shootings, 16-year-old Brittany Holloway, was recovering at University Medical Center on Tuesday after undergoing surgery to remove fragments of the bullet that struck her left leg as she and her family fled the gunfire.
"It's throbbing like I got hit with a hammer," Holloway said Tuesday afternoon from her hospital room.
Just before the chaotic scene unfolded, the Cheyenne High School sophomore was with her family watching low-rider cars with hydraulic shocks bouncing on the street.
"I didn't hear anyone fighting. They just started shooting," she said. "My mom tells me to run. Everybody's going in different directions, then I fell on top of a parked car.
"My sister's like, 'Somebody's bleeding!' I looked down at my leg, and blood was everywhere."
Holloway tried to get up and run but found her left leg was useless. She fruitlessly tried to hop away on her good leg before a good Samaritan scooped her up and carried her around a corner.
"I was afraid I was going to die," she said. "The hole in my leg, blood was coming out of it like a water faucet. Some lady took her belt off real quick, and my stepdad wrapped it around my leg. I kept blinking, and everything was blurry."
In the hospital Tuesday afternoon, the teenager was awaiting a physical therapist who would help her try to walk for the first time on a leg with four screws in it.
"I don't know if I can do it," she said. "I tried to get up once to use the restroom and fell right back down to bed. This one leg feels like it weighs 100 pounds by itself, and it's just pounding if I try to move it left or right."
Holloway said the bullet shattered her knee and her dream of running for her school. "I guess I'm not going to be joining the track team," she said.
But she is thankful she survived. "I was lucky that it wasn't worse than this. I mean this bullet could've hit me somewhere else."
Lt. Lew Roberts of the Metropolitan Police Department's Homicide unit said his squad is getting a lot of cooperation from the community. "Right now we are following about 25 leads," Roberts said.
As of late Tuesday no arrests had been made.
Neighborhood residents are hoping the tips lead to those responsible for the shootings.
"I hope to God they catch them," said 74-year-old Willie "Pop" Lawson, who lives on Frederick Avenue, near where the victims were shot.
Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers at 385-5555 or homicide detectives at 229-3521.
Neighborhood Mourns
Residents say gunmen who killed three at party gave no warning, fired indiscriminately
By FRANCIS McCABE
REVIEW-JOURNAL
There was no warning, just gunfire and bloodshed.
Five or six gunmen hid behind an inflatable bounce house filled with children at the seventh annual Berkley Square block party Sunday and unleashed a barrage of bullets into an unsuspecting crowd of hundreds about 5:43 p.m., witnesses recalled Tuesday.
On the sidewalk and street in front of Anthony Mason's home at 513 Frederick Ave., three people were slain, and four others suffered nonlife-threatening wounds.
The gunmen were teenagers angered because they had been asked to leave the family event, Mason said.
"I had asked them to leave because they were causing trouble," he said. "They were getting loud and saying 'north-side niggas aren't supposed to be over here.' I told them this was a family party, not a gang-banging thing. I told them to take it somewhere else. They left after that."
Some heard them defiantly say they would come back, Mason's wife, Sheila Mason recalled.
The gunmen soon sneaked over a wall and found cover behind the bounce house across the street from Mason's home, witnesses said. "Nobody saw it (the shootings) coming," Sheila Mason said.
"Those people who were killed, they didn't do nothing," Anthony Mason said.
"This wasn't black-on-black violence. There were all types of people at the party: black, white, Hispanic, Asians. They (the shooters) were just trying to make a name for themselves."
Anthony Mason had invited 24-year-old Steven "Goldie" Beck to the party to learn more about low-rider cars. Beck died on the sidewalk, blood pouring from his head, Anthony Mason said.
"I was standing over Goldie," he said. "I kept wiping the blood off his face. He couldn't breath, so I turned him over on his side, and he started spitting up blood."
Beck soon stopped coughing. "His eyes were open. He was just staring at me," Anthony Mason said, shaking his head as he stared at three memorials honoring Beck and the two others who died in the shootings. "I'm all out of words."
The Clark County coroner's office identified Beck and 41-year-old Tina Robles of Las Vegas as two of the victims. The third victim, a man, was not identified by authorities on Tuesday.
About 60 people attended a candlelight vigil for the three victims Tuesday evening in front of Mason's home.
People sobbed and hugged as red and white wax dripped on the street where blood had soaked the asphalt Sunday. Friends of the victims and survivors, with several police officers, gathered to pay their respects.
"It's just crazy," said Jan Carroll, a mother and resident of Berkley Square who attended the vigil. "How they can take something so positive and turn it to sadness. And for what?"
Adolph Robles, Tina Robles' husband, attended the vigil. After walking to the makeshift memorial in the middle of the street to pay his respects, he observed the rest of the vigil from a chair, surrounded by people who expressed their sorrow over the slayings.
The coroner's office said Tina Robles died from a gunshot wound to the head.
Friends at the vigil said Germar Samuel was the third victim. Samuel, a man in his mid-twenties, had grown up in Berkley Square, friend Karl Cage said.
"When I heard he was shot, I ran up here to be with him," Cage said. "He was still fighting."
The first paramedics on the scene helped Robles and said her head wound was more serious, Cage said.
"I didn't understand that," Cage said, recalling how he told his friend to keep "breathing and fighting." Cage knew his friend was alive because he would gulp for air.
"He was a real fun guy. He liked to fix up cars and play Madden," a football video game, Cage said.
He said he had not slept since watching his friend die. "How do you sleep after seeing your best friend like that? Forget friend, he was my brother."
"He was just a great person to be around," Damare Johnson, 22, said with tears in his eyes. Johnson said that though the victim had moved away from the neighborhood more than a month ago, he still had strong ties to the community.
Johnson said he was surprised that the night had turned deadly because the neighborhood gathering was usually peaceful and closely watched. "It's usually policed really well," he said.
Capt. Gary Schofield, leader of the Bolden Area Command and one of the officers who attended the vigil, condemned the shooting while praising residents of the neighborhood.
"Those people have been working to improve that neighborhood, and they have done a remarkable job keeping violence out of there," Schofield said.
"These people said 'We don't want trouble,' and the response was to come back and shoot it up," the captain said. "The people are fed up and tired of it.
"I've worked a lot of homicides, and in 20-plus years this is the most brazen amount of violence I have seen," Schofield said.
Anthony Mason said earlier that police had done everything right on Sunday. There was a police presence at the properly permitted block party, he said. "They were there right when the shooting started" and were quick to help the wounded, he said.
One of the survivors of the shootings, 16-year-old Brittany Holloway, was recovering at University Medical Center on Tuesday after undergoing surgery to remove fragments of the bullet that struck her left leg as she and her family fled the gunfire.
"It's throbbing like I got hit with a hammer," Holloway said Tuesday afternoon from her hospital room.
Just before the chaotic scene unfolded, the Cheyenne High School sophomore was with her family watching low-rider cars with hydraulic shocks bouncing on the street.
"I didn't hear anyone fighting. They just started shooting," she said. "My mom tells me to run. Everybody's going in different directions, then I fell on top of a parked car.
"My sister's like, 'Somebody's bleeding!' I looked down at my leg, and blood was everywhere."
Holloway tried to get up and run but found her left leg was useless. She fruitlessly tried to hop away on her good leg before a good Samaritan scooped her up and carried her around a corner.
"I was afraid I was going to die," she said. "The hole in my leg, blood was coming out of it like a water faucet. Some lady took her belt off real quick, and my stepdad wrapped it around my leg. I kept blinking, and everything was blurry."
In the hospital Tuesday afternoon, the teenager was awaiting a physical therapist who would help her try to walk for the first time on a leg with four screws in it.
"I don't know if I can do it," she said. "I tried to get up once to use the restroom and fell right back down to bed. This one leg feels like it weighs 100 pounds by itself, and it's just pounding if I try to move it left or right."
Holloway said the bullet shattered her knee and her dream of running for her school. "I guess I'm not going to be joining the track team," she said.
But she is thankful she survived. "I was lucky that it wasn't worse than this. I mean this bullet could've hit me somewhere else."
Lt. Lew Roberts of the Metropolitan Police Department's Homicide unit said his squad is getting a lot of cooperation from the community. "Right now we are following about 25 leads," Roberts said.
As of late Tuesday no arrests had been made.
Neighborhood residents are hoping the tips lead to those responsible for the shootings.
"I hope to God they catch them," said 74-year-old Willie "Pop" Lawson, who lives on Frederick Avenue, near where the victims were shot.
Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers at 385-5555 or homicide detectives at 229-3521.
