Pacoima Girl Slain by Gang Gunfire Outside Dance

A 12-year-old Pacoima girl was shot and killed early Saturday by gang gunfire as she waited for her family to pick her up after a dance, Los Angeles police said.

Tiffany Dozier was standing with several girls outside the Boys & Girls Club of San Fernando Valley in Pacoima about 12:30 a.m. when she was shot once in the chest by gang members driving by in a car, Sgt. Paul Haberman said.

The seventh-grader died at the scene.

“She’s an innocent victim,” Haberman said. “She just happened to be standing nearby. . . . Her parents were already there to pick her up.”

The shooting occurred after a fight outside the dance between members of rival Valley gangs. The dance was organized by parents who wanted to keep their children out of trouble and off the streets.

“The dance was over and everybody was going home,” Haberman said. “There had been some disputes inside and once the dance was over those disputes were carried outside. . . . Someone started shooting.”

Haberman said that detectives were interviewing witnesses and that the gunmen were believed to be riding in a two-door black car, possibly an early 1980s mid-size General Motors auto.

Witnesses told Tiffany’s relatives that as the dance ended several gang members got out of a car on Glenoaks Boulevard and began fighting with some youths in the parking lot in front of the building. A second car drove up and someone inside opened fire.

After Tiffany was hit, she ran to the side of the building, where she collapsed and died. She was dead by the time relatives reached her.

Her family gathered Saturday at her grandfather’s home in Pacoima about a mile from the shooting. At the gathering, relatives paced nervously in front of the home as friends and neighbors paid their respects. The mood was somber but tinged with anger at the frequency of gang shootings in the northeast Valley.

Tiffany, whose parents are separated, attended Maclay Junior High School and lived with her mother. Her father, John Dozier, 35, said that he had planned to take Tiffany and her younger brother and sister to his Palmdale home Friday but that Tiffany asked to go to the dance.

“When I last saw her, she was getting ready to go out. You know, fussing with her hair and stuff,” John Dozier said. “It was 8 o’clock. I thought I’d just pick her up Saturday. I never thought that would be the last time I saw my little girl.”

Family members said Tiffany was a cheerleader for a football team and enjoyed dancing and sports.

“She’s just like the normal 12-year-old, who couldn’t wait to grow up,” John Dozier said. “And now because of some. . . gangbanger she won’t get the chance.”

Robin Dozier said there was not enough security at the dance, that there should have been security guards or a police officer.

“The police should have had someone drive by when it ended,” Robin Dozier said. “Gangbangers would have seen that squad car and backed off.”

Linda Harris, a member of the board of directors of the Boys & Girls Club, agreed that security was insufficient. She visited the Dozier family Saturday afternoon and said the board would hold an emergency meeting this weekend to discuss security measures.

“It should have been canceled when they realized there weren’t enough parents” to supervise, Harris said. “When we approved this dance we thought there would be enough security. . . . We’ve never had anything like this happen there before.”

“The Boys Club is supposed to be safe,” John Dozier said. “These dances are supposed to keep people out of trouble.

“I just feel sad,” her father said. “I just don’t know why in the hell someone would kill my little girl.”