Latorria Westbrook was 26 years old when she was gunned down on the streets in South LA on July 19, 2013.
Los Angeles police detectives in South Bureau Criminal Gang Homicide Division say they have had a very hard time getting anyone to come forward with information leading to her killer.
“I just want people to know Latorria’s story,” says Ottavia Smith, a simple plea from a grieving mother who’s also had to become mother to her orphaned granddaughter.
“Her mom was her best friend,” she says of then 5-year-old Nacion. “They did everything together. But it’s hard to protect someone who understands so much.”
It was a Friday night and Ottavia says she gave her daughter movie tickets to go out with friends. But late that night, Latorria didn’t come home. Within hours, Ottavia got a call she’s received before.
“Just like with my son, I couldn’t move.”
Ottavia’s 22-year-old son Lorenzo was also killed, just two years before Latorria, at a club in Hollywood. She says while she mourns them both, her daughter’s murder doesn’t make sense.
“And I think that’s what hurts the most,” she says. “To know that she did not deserve what she got. She did not deserve that. Not her. As African-Americans we worry about our sons. A lot. But you never think about it getting your daughter. Never think about that part.”
The night of the murder, witnesses claimed they heard around six gunshots. Shell casings littered the ground around a white utility van where LAPD detectives say Latorria was standing with her friends around 95th and Figueroa.
“We really don’t have any problems on this street ever,” says Det. Melvin Hernandez, lead detective on the case. He says they have reason to believe the suspect vehicle was a white car and that there was no interaction with those in the car and those standing on grass — just gunfire.
When the echoing gunshots calmed, in the silence was Latorria, pronounced dead on the scene.
“I just remember going to 95th and Figueroa, seeing the tape again,” her mother says. “Nothing can take that type of pain away, to lose a person like that, to see my daughter there with the sheet over her.”
These are images she cannot shake.
“The tape. The paramedics. The white sheet. It has not gone away.”
Yellow tape in South LA is nothing new. Only now, Ottavia says she knows the deep, personal meaning behind it — twice over.
“When you see that yellow tape, you know that that’s somebody else’s loved one. That somebody is going to feel exactly the way you felt,” Ottavia says, thinking about the person who pulled the trigger. “He destroyed a great family, a great person. Destroyed it. My daughter’s daughter was 5 years old. Five!”
Nacion is 8 now. Her grandmother says she understands that her mother is gone and knows why.
“I ran into my room and I started crying a really, really long time because I didn’t really know it was going to happen like that and her life was gonna end so young,” Nacion says with the innocence of her years, and some maturity beyond them, “I don’t understand why people are so cruel in the world. I just don’t.”
But it is for Nacion and for other grieving mothers that Ottavia says she wanted to come forward.
“I don’t know what’s happening in South LA but I sure as hell wish it would stop,” she says. “I don’t want her to be forgotten and I want whoever did it to be brought to justice.”
But Ottavia says she knows it’s not easy for detectives trying to pry information from those who may have all the answers.
“Those parts of the neighborhood and where we come from, people just don’t talk and I get it,” she says. “But if you just understand the pain that has been imposed on our family. Again! Nobody deserves to ever have to go through what we’ve gone through.”
Anyone with information is asked to call LAPD South Bureau Criminal Gang Homicide Division at 323-786-5100. Callers can remain anonymous.
