Passenger Won’t Be Charged in Drive-By

Prosecutors declined to charge Dwayne Deshon Pearson Monday in the drive-by shooting of 13-year-old Joey Swift, deciding that there is not enough evidence.

But Pearson, 25, who surrendered to police, was held on unrelated perjury charges, authorities said.

Swift’s slaying March 23 just north of the Santa Monica Freeway near Crenshaw Boulevard as he left church brought an outcry in the South Los Angeles community. The LAPD deployed dozens of officers to help solve the case, and called in a task force that included federal investigators. Although fear initially silenced some witnesses, a few eventually came forward, police said.

LAPD West Bureau Cmdr. Paul Kim said investigators are also looking into allegations that some witnesses may have been intimidated.

James Bartel Collier has been charged with murdering Swift. Detectives believe that Pearson was riding in the car from which Swift was shot. Collier is alleged to have been both the driver and the gunman.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Rash said investigators don’t have solid evidence that Pearson knew what Collier was going to do “or encouraged him.” The law says that “mere presence at the scene of a crime is not enough” to warrant murder charges, she said.

Gang cases are often “frustrating from the get-go,” Rash said. “There is an effort to be aggressive with filings.... But we do have to work within the bounds of the law.”

The Swift case presented particular difficulties, agreed James McMurray, the LAPD’s new detective chief. Drive-by shooting cases frequently involve more than one perpetrator in a car, but the Swift case was atypical because one person allegedly both drove and shot.

Also Monday, Lorri Arbuckle, Joey Swift’s mother, was given $1,000 by a Koreatown community group.

Arbuckle said she would use the check from the Community Safety Patrol to move to a neighborhood with less crime.

Police called the gift an example of multi-ethnic unity across black and Korean American ethnic lines, and praised the community response to the murder.