A reputed gang member was charged Friday with the August killing of a former gang member-turned-anti-violence activist in South Los Angeles.
Kody Townsend, 19, who remains at large, was charged with murder, conspiracy to commit a crime and possession of a firearm by a felon, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
He is accused in the Aug. 6 killing of 51-year-old Reginald Foreman, a former gang member who was fatally shot near South Crenshaw Boulevard and West 59th Street in the Hyde Park area. Foreman, a member of the gang-intervention organization 2nd Call, was shot while taking part in a cleanup project with other members of the group.
A second defendant, Jeremiah Abdelhameed, 25, was charged with one county of being an accessory after the fact for allegedly helping Townsend avoid capture. He was expected to be arraigned in downtown Los Angeles Friday afternoon. He was being held in lieu of $50,000 bail, according to jail records.
An exact motive for the crime was not released, but prosecutors said Foreman, though reformed, was a member of a rival gang to Townsend’s gang.
The charges against Townsend include a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait, along with allegations that he committed the crime while an active member of a criminal street gang and that the killing was carried out to further the activities of the gang.
It was unclear if Kody Townsend is related to Clifford “Skipp” Townsend, a former gang member and a co-founder of 2nd Call.
The group 2nd Call describes itself as a “community based organization designed to save lives, by reducing violence and assisting in the personal development of high-risk individuals, proven offenders, ex-felons, parolees and others who society disregards.”
Skipp Townsend was a documented gang member for nearly 30 years, but helped found 2nd Call in 2005 and has worked with various government organizations to combat gang violence, including the city’s Gang Reduction Youth Development program, the Southern California Cease Fire Committee and a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office advisory council.
According to a biography previously posted online by the D.A.’s Office, Townsend has worked to train city gang-intervention workers and law enforcement officers, and helps community organizations teach life skills to youth and to inmates at California prisons.
Another anti-gang activist and 2nd Call worker, 37-year-old Eric Washington, was fatally shot on the Fourth of July while trying to break up an altercation at an apartment complex in the 700 block of West Laurel Street. Rewards totaling $70,000 are being offered for information leading to his killer.
