A violent night in Long Beach saw a shooting and a stabbing in the early hours of May 18, with police currently investigating both incidents. The Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) reported that the first incident, a no-hit shooting occurred on the 1500 block of West Summit Street around 1:07 a.m. A woman claims she was targeted by gunfire while driving but fortunately escaped injury, as bullets flew but hit neither flesh nor fabric.
According to LBPD's official report, the suspect in the shooting spree made a swift escape before law enforcement arrived, leaving detectives to puzzle out his identity and motives, with no apparent leads or crime scene discovered, despite an exhaustive search of the area.
Mere hours later, at approximately 5:41 a.m., police were summoned to a different kind of violence at the intersection of 14th Street and Fashion Avenue. What was initially perceived as a battery call swiftly unveiled itself to be a stabbing incident. A confrontation between a male suspect and a female escalated when a third party, another male, intervened and suffered stab wounds for his troubles.
Both the stabber and the stabbed were found to have sustained non-life-threatening injuries. "The preliminary investigation indicates that the male adult suspect was in a verbal dispute with a female adult when the victim attempted to intervene," the LBPD statement notes, detailing the escalation to a physical altercation that culminated in the stabbing. The suspect was apprehended and, along with the victim, transported to a local hospital for treatment of wounds that spilled blood, but not enough to claim a life.
The Long Beach community remains rattled by these acts of violence, as the city's police force continues to piece together the scant evidence left in the wake of both the shooting and stabbing.
