Teenage Boy Walking to Store Is Killed in a Drive-by Shooting

A 15-year-old boy walking to a store to buy candy was killed in a drive-by shooting in southwest Los Angeles, police said Friday.

Bailey James Tucker was shot at least twice Thursday by men in a white vehicle as he and Howard Robinson, 18, were on their way to a Mobil gas station mini-mart through an alley near Crenshaw and Adams boulevards.

Tucker, who was shot in the chest, stomach and groin, died at 7:30 p.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Robinson was not hurt.

Police said it was a gang-related shooting, but Tucker was not in a gang. “He was not going to do drugs. He was not going to commit a crime. He was going to get something to eat,” said Det. Pete Razanskas of the Los Angeles Police Department.

The neighborhoods near the intersection are “hot locations,” Det. Rick Gordon said, referring to several homicides and a rash of armed robberies and attempted murders in recent months.

Chanel Tucker, the boy’s mother, said she should have moved years ago. The family has lived in the neighborhood for about five years.

“The first week we moved here there was a drive-by,” she said Friday, surrounded by friends and relatives gathered at her home. “Every day there is something. I was ready to move then. I should have.”

After Tucker was shot, Robinson ran to the Tuckers’ home, which is four blocks from the gas station, to alert the family, who then called police. Tucker’s older brother and Robinson returned to the alley.

“He was my brother and I loved him,” said Brian Tucker Jr., 18. “He was young, but he acted like he was much older than that.”

“He never acted his age,” said Dawayne Colton, 15, Bailey Tucker’s best friend.

Bailey Tucker, a Los Angeles High School sophomore, had played football while in junior high, but recently had set his sights on becoming a professional rapper.

“He was really good at a lot of things,” said his father, Brian Tucker, distribution manager for the L.A. Watts Times. “He was just all-around talented.”