August 14, 2014

 

By Kenneth D. Miller

Assistant Managing Editor 

 

 

It has been more than one year and the pain and grief felt by the family of the promising teenage Bijan Shoushari who as murdered on Crenshaw Blvd. on Aug. 3, 2013 is still fresh.

 

He would have been 19 years old by now, finishing up his first year of college to become a first responder, but instead is another unsolved murder of a Black teen whose life was taken before it flourished.

 

Two week ago, the family and friends of Shoushari gathered on the anniversary of his murder at Leimert Park in the Crenshaw District, adjacent to a giant billboard offering a $50,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of his killer or killers.

 

Shoushtari was shot to death while riding in a car on Crenshaw Boulevard shortly after midnight on Aug. 3, 2013. The shots were fired from a car that pulled up alongside the white 1973 Buick Electra in which Shoushtari was riding. No one else in the car was hurt.

 

His mother Marsha and family members have vowed to continued to question why would a person kill a teen who was high school football player and good standing member of his church?

 

It is a question that mothers and family members of other young Black boys or teen slain by senseless violence in this never ending tragic tale of Black on Black crime.

 

While discovering who did it and why would not bring back Bijan, it would in a sense give the family some closure and more importantly take an individual or individuals who are callous killers off the street.

 

Shoushtari had just graduated from Hamilton High, where he was a football player. He had plans to go to college and wanted to be an emergency medical technician, then eventually a firefighter.

 

“If the people who shot him knew him, they wouldn't have shot him,” said Mark Jones, his uncle, a local pastor, pondered.

 

More than 100 people, including family members suffering from similar plights helt lit candles and solemnly marched in the park . They wore green T-shirts, with words pleading for Stop The Violence. It is a plea that many in the community wish would be heeded to, even if it was too late for Bijan Shoushari.

 

“If you know someone who knows someone who did this heinous crime, please, please call someone,” Jones-Shoushtari said.

 

The killing has led friends and family to start a campaign called “Stop the violence, save lives” aimed at curbing violence.

 

“This is a way of life for us now,” Jones-Shoushtari said.

 

Her family has learned to cope. Her husband, Manochehr, is sometimes angry, and he is very protective of his 21-year-old daughter, Ea, who attends Pepperdine University.

 

Ea and older sister Samantha, 27, recently got tattoos of their brother’s name in Farsi as a remembrance.

 

For Samantha, the passage of time has allowed her to more fully accept her brother's death.

 

“When I look at his pictures now, I smile,” she said. “Before it was hard.”

 

Jones-Shoushtari said she received a phone call from the Los Angeles Unified School District recently. The caller told her that the district was polling recent graduates to track their progress and wanted to know what Bijan was up to.

 

She told the woman that her son had been killed but added that if he were alive, he would have been finishing his first year of college, working a part-time job and taking summer school classes.

 

Los Angeles police detectives say they have no leads or motives in the case. A $50,000 reward has been offered.

 

Anyone with information on this case can call the LAPD’s Criminal Gang Homicide Division at (213) 485-4341.

 

Sentinel Wire Services contributed to this report.

Category: News