Mothers Appeal for Leads in Attack on Sons

Homicide detectives and two anguished mothers asked for the public’s help Wednesday in finding the gunmen who killed a local college student and paralyzed a second young man last weekend.

Kevin Marlon Bogle and Terence Lawson, both 19, were shot early Sunday as their car was stopped at a red light at Crenshaw Boulevard and Stocker Street in South Los Angeles. Another friend who was in the back seat was not struck.

The assailants, believed to be gang members, drove up next to the passenger side of Lawson’s 1991 Chevrolet Beretta and began firing. Bogle, who was hit multiple times, was killed instantly. Lawson, an aspiring professional basketball player who had been a star on Westchester High School’s team, was shot in the back and is paralyzed from the waist down.

In a hospital interview, Lawson said he remembers feeling “something hit me in my back and I looked over. They didn’t say nothing to us. They just started shooting. My foot just smashed in the gas and I looked at my friend and he was bleeding from the neck.”

Lawson said he saw a patrol car and began furiously honking the horn. In the ensuing confusion, officers mistakenly handcuffed Lawson and his friend and searched them. A man who had been sitting at the same red light in a van and had two windows shot out said he thought the shots had come from Lawson’s car.

At a news conference Wednesday at the intersection where the killing occurred, the mothers pleaded for witnesses to come forward.

Police say that Saturday is known as cruising night on Crenshaw Boulevard, despite efforts to crack down on its popularity.

Det. Pete Razanskas of the LAPD’s Southwest Division said this was the fourth fatal shooting this year of an innocent bystander caught in gunfire on Crenshaw Boulevard, including a young woman who was killed as she celebrated the Lakers basketball championship.

“This cannot go on,” Razanskas said. Bogle “was a kid with no record, not a gangbanger, was going to school, playing sports and minding his own business.”

Bogle’s mother, Marjorie Gordon, 40, said her son, who was born in Jamaica, was a “fun, active guy” who was into computers and music, and was generous to a fault. On the night he was killed, he had brought home an armful of candy and popcorn for his two younger sisters. An uncle described Bogle as a young man who “didn’t like to run the streets,” and would wake up at 6 a.m. to get ready for his classes at Santa Monica Community College.

Lawson, a Los Angeles City College student, lay in his hospital bed, mourning his best friend and replaying that night over and over again in his head. He quietly told detectives Tuesday night, “I hope you find who did it.” Anyone with further information about the case is asked to call (213) 485-2417.