2 Gang Members Sentenced to Life Terms in Mall Shooting

Two 20-year-old gang members were sentenced Tuesday to multiple life prison terms for spraying gunfire into a crowd at the Fallbrook Mall in Canoga Park, killing a Taft High School sophomore they believed had shown them disrespect.

The drive-by shooting of 16-year-old Ramtin Shaolian was motivated by “a trivial dispute that lasted 30 seconds at most,” said Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Sandy R. Kriegler.

“When young people are running around the community with guns, out of control, this is what happens,” Kriegler said. “This was an absolutely senseless and needless murder. It very easily could have turned into a massacre. We’re lucky there weren’t more dead people out there.”

A jury in August returned first-degree murder verdicts against Tommy Lee Williams and Eliot O’Neal Singletary. Jurors rejected defense claims that two girls from upscale neighborhoods south of Ventura Boulevard lied when they implicated Williams and Singletary in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Police said both defendants belonged to Every Woman’s Fantasy, a West Valley gang that has been linked to other crimes, including the 1992 stabbing death of Taft High School football player LaMoun Thames. That case was never tried because police were unable to locate several key witnesses.

Williams, the gunman, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and also received five other life sentences for attempted murder.

Singletary, who initiated the dispute, was sentenced to 26 years to life in state prison, followed by five other life terms. He won’t become eligible for parole for at least 32 years, said his lawyer, Phil Nameth.