A 33-year-old Long Beach man was found dead with suspicious injuries on the 6500 block of Muriel Avenue Thursday morning, and the suspect had already fled the scene by the time officers arrived. Long Beach police responded around 8:30 a.m. to reports of a deceased person and located the victim, identified as Kenneth Shannon, on the street just north of the 91 Freeway.
Detectives who responded to the scene found signs of foul play, according to police, and the case is now being investigated as a suspected homicide, as reported by MyNewsLA.com. The circumstances surrounding Shannon's death, including the cause of his injuries and any motive, remain under investigation. The outlet's report does not specify how the suspect got away, only that they fled before officers arrived.
Homicide Detectives Shear and Myers are leading the investigation and are asking anyone with information to come forward. Detective Ethan Shear, one of the primary investigators on the case, previously worked a fatal shooting in the 1000 block of Myrtle Avenue this past July in which a suspect also fled the scene before police arrived, leaving a 19-year-old man dead and another injured, according to CBS News Los Angeles.
A Block With a Recent History of Gunfire
This is not the first violent incident on this stretch of Muriel Avenue. In January 2025, a man sitting in his parked car on the same block was approached by a gunman who opened fire into his upper body before fleeing on foot, according to the Long Beach Post. That shooting was also non-fatal, and the motive was never publicly resolved. Hoodline covered that night of gun violence on Muriel Ave at the time.
The pattern extends beyond this single block. LBPD's North Division, which covers North Long Beach and the Muriel Avenue corridor, was the only patrol division in the city to see homicides rise during the first half of 2025, climbing from four to six killings year-over-year even as citywide homicides fell by nearly 28 percent over that same stretch, per the Long Beach Post's crime data. LBPD officials have pointed to gang involvement as a key factor behind shootings in the city's central and northern divisions, according to CBS News Los Angeles.
Citywide Numbers Point the Other Direction
The 6500 block of Muriel Avenue falls under LBPD's North Patrol Division, headquartered at a station built in 2004 on Atlantic Avenue near Scherer Park, which serves as the primary operational hub for patrols across North Long Beach, according to the City of Long Beach. In May 2024, the department created a dedicated High Crime Focus Team tasked with analyzing daily crime data and conducting targeted enforcement in neighborhoods experiencing persistent gun violence, including North Long Beach.
Those efforts appear to be paying off at the citywide level. Violent crime in Long Beach dropped 21 percent and homicides fell 33 percent during the first five months of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, city officials said, attributing the decline to increased police staffing and community intervention programs. California's overall homicide rate also fell in 2025 to 3.5 per 100,000 residents, the lowest figure recorded since the state began systematic tracking in 1966, according to the Long Beach Post. Long Beach had recorded 38 homicides in 2024, a per-capita rate the paper noted was comparable to cities such as Denver and Phoenix, though still far below the roughly 100 slayings the city averaged annually during the 1980s and 1990s.
What Happens Next
Whether Shannon's death was tied to the same forces driving violence elsewhere on the block, or in North Long Beach more broadly, remains an open question that detectives have not yet answered publicly. No suspect description or motive has been released, and the exact cause of Shannon's suspicious injuries has not been disclosed.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Homicide Detectives Shear and Myers at 562-570-7244. Those who wish to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 or submit a tip online at lacrimestoppers.org. Law enforcement has said it relies heavily on such tips in cases where suspects flee scenes before police arrive.
