Black Youth Is Shot in Racial Attack; 1 White Suspect Seized

A black teen-ager was taunted with racial slurs and then shot with a small-caliber rifle while fishing at Ballona Creek in Playa del Rey, police reported Monday.

Terence Goudeau, 18, was listed in satisfactory condition at UCLA Medical Center after a single .22-caliber bullet struck him in the arm and left side, breaking one rib and bruising a lung. The shooting occurred Sunday afternoon, police said, after several white men began taunting Goudeau and his three cousins from the balcony of an apartment unit overlooking the creek.

LAPD detectives were searching Monday for Mark Shane Lashley, a 24- to 28-year-old resident of the apartment complex in the 6200 block of Vista del Mar. Lashley, who faces charges of attempted murder, was described by witnesses as being drunk during the incident, Police Lt. Ross Moen said.

A second suspect, Christopher Glen Flores, 26, of Santa Clara was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after he brandished a knife at the fishermen, Moen said. Flores was being held Monday in lieu of $2,000 bail.

Although police declined to disclose details of the incident, Goudeau said the taunts--by three men--lasted about 20 minutes as he and his cousins fished on the south side of the creek channel.

“They were drinking and . . . saying, ‘What kind of fish are you going to get, white fish or black fish?’ ” Goudeau said from his hospital bed. “They told us we should take our black asses back to Harlem. They were calling us niggers, telling us to go back to Harlem, calling us all kinds of names.”

Soon after the fishermen began answering the taunts, saying they were after white fish, one of the men left the apartment and went down to the channel, Goudeau said. He argued with Goudeau and his cousin Dennis Wilson, 23, and noticed that Goudeau was holding a knife that was being used to cut up anchovies for bait, according to Goudeau.

“He said, ‘You think you’ve got a knife? I’m going to go get a knife,’ ” Goudeau recalled, adding: “I said, ‘I ain’t even going to worry about you,’ and walked away.”

As the first man returned to the apartment, another on the balcony hefted a rifle with a scope and leveled it at Goudeau’s cousin Trenton Wilson, 12, a heavy-set youth who had been a favorite target of the taunters, according to Goudeau.

Wilson began to run and Goudeau, trying to shield Wilson, ran with him, he said.

“I started hollering (to witnesses), ‘Call the police! Call the police!’ ” Goudeau said. “If I wouldn’t have run, he would have got my little cousin. As soon as I ran I got shot in the side.”

Goudeau said he kept running until his cousin advised him to sit. He said he had trouble breathing and was spitting blood.

The gunman then swung the rifle toward Dennis and Kelvin Wilson, 21, causing them to dive into the creek for safety, Goudeau said. “He was trying to get an aim on them while they were in the water,” he said, “but they were hiding behind the rocks. He was looking through the scope.”

The first man returned to the edge of the channel with a 10- or 12-inch knife, but no fighting occurred and no one else was injured, Goudeau said.

As Goudeau sat bleeding, the man with the knife rushed to him, screaming at him and waving his arms, said resident Christine Edwards, who rushed out to her third-floor balcony after hearing the gunshot. The tirade lasted “a couple of minutes” before the man with the knife turned and walked away, she said.

“He’s sitting there, bleeding, and (the suspect) is yelling at him,” Edwards said. Goudeau “didn’t do anything, just sat there. He didn’t do anything to provoke” the man who accosted him.

That man had appeared drunk as early as Friday night and was “really loud and obnoxious all day” on Sunday, according to Edwards.

Police said three residents of the complex came forward as witnesses and others may have seen the incident as well. The third white who was reported on the balcony by Goudeau was not being sought by police, Moen said.

The apartment manager, who asked not to be named, described Lashley as a longtime tenant with no history of causing trouble. The others apparently were visitors to his apartment, she said.

Ballona Creek has been used for years without incident by fishermen of all races, the manager said. Several residents, alarmed by the shooting, have asked about the identity of the victim, she said. “They would like to send him a card or a note or something. . . . This kind of thing just doesn’t happen here.”