Would-Be Party Crasher Is Shot to Death

A 17-year-old Pasadena prep school student who tried to crash a graduation party over the weekend was fatally shot after brandishing a gun and shooting a partygoer in the head when a guest asked him to leave, police said Monday.

Kwame Gordon of Altadena was found dead in the back of a Mercedes-Benz after being taken by his older brother and two friends to a hospital following the shooting early Saturday outside a house in the 1500 block of Waldran Avenue in Eagle Rock, said Det. Jose Carrillo of the Los Angeles Police Department.

A junior at Maranatha High School in Pasadena and a graduate of the private Waldorf School in Altadena, he had tried to get into the party with his brother, Richard, 18, and two friends but was denied entry because the celebration had ended, Carrillo said.

The brothers and their underage friends waited outside for several minutes until they were approached by party guest Alexander Foster, the detective said.

“Foster, a friend of the party host, observed [Kwame] Gordon and his friends loitering and causing a disturbance,” Carrillo said. “He asked the group to leave and [Kwame] Gordon produced a handgun and shot Foster in the head.”

Foster, 27, was struck once. He is in stable condition at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, and is expected to recuperate, Carrillo said.

After Foster was shot, one or more assailants -- believed to be acting in retaliation -- fired several shots at Kwame Gordon, striking him once in the stomach, Carrillo said.

“They could be friends or family members of Foster,” the detective said of the suspects. “They returned fire and struck him.”

Richard Gordon and the two friends drove Kwame Gordon to Huntington Memorial, where the trio were detained by Pasadena police, who discovered the victim in the back seat. He was already dead, Carrillo said.

Detectives were trying to determine Monday who shot Kwame Gordon. They intended to question as many of the 150 to 200 party guests as possible.

“Unfortunately, the young man was the one who instigated the whole incident,” Carrillo said. “A lot of these teenagers are arming themselves. Why he had a gun is anyone’s guess.”

But that picture did not fit with the boy that teacher Sam Glazer knew at Waldorf, the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school Kwame Gordon attended for eight years.

“This was certainly no dead-end kid,” Glazer said. “This was not a troublemaker. He was absolutely a nice kid. He was loved by everybody in class.”

About 20 of Kwame Gordon’s former classmates at Waldorf gathered at a friend’s house Saturday night to reminisce about him, Glazer said.

“Some hadn’t seen each other since the eighth grade,” he said. “They mourned the loss of their friend, visited with each other and remembered him.”

Kwame Gordon is survived by his father, Richard K. Gordon, chairman of the teacher education department at Cal State Dominguez Hills; his mother, Valerie Williams; and his brother.

Carrillo said drinking did not appear to be involved in the shooting, although party guests were drinking alcoholic beverages. Police did not know why the brothers and their friends showed up at the party, but Carrillo said it seemed to have turned into a “flier party,” in which fliers are made and distributed advertising the event.