4-Year-Old Boy Among 5 Victims in Shotgun Attack

Five people--including a mother and her 4-year-old son--were wounded Saturday when gunmen peppered a crowded motel room in North Long Beach with shotgun pellets.

The 2:55 a.m. shooting at the Atlantic Motel in the 6100 block of Atlantic Avenue was apparently gang-related, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

Late Saturday, authorities arrested James Daughtery, 18, and Marquis Simril, 19, on suspicion of attempted murder, deputies said.

Damien Dennis, 4, who was shot in the chest and suffered punctured lungs, was the most seriously injured, investigators said. He was taken to St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach and was reported Saturday in serious but stable condition.

The boy’s mother, Sheila Norvelle, 34, was reported in serious condition with stomach wounds.

Others injured in the attack were Larry Mayhand, 33, with leg wounds; Jerry March McClellan, 15, with chest and neck wounds, and Ursula Walker, 21, wounded in the chest, authorities said.

Witnesses said Norvelle and her son were in the motel room because they had fled their own room after a dispute between Norvelle and her husband.

“She was staying in Room 21, but she’d had an argument with her husband so she went next door to Room 23,” said Rudy Hildalgo, a manager of the motel. “It was (a) regular Friday-night quarrel.”

Norvelle, her husband and their five children had lived on and off at the motel for nearly a year, other witnesses said.

Several victims where shot as they played dominoes in the motel room’s kitchen area, deputies said. The others were talking near the room’s front door.

Investigators said Mayhand and Walker were arrested after deputies learned they had outstanding narcotics-related warrants.