Brianna Kupfer stabbing suspect arrested in Pasadena - Los Angeles Times
Category: News & Politics
Via: vic-eldred • 4 years ago • 46 commentsBy: Nathan SolisStaff Writer (Los Angeles Times)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A man suspected of stabbing to death a 24-year-old woman working at a furniture store in Hancock Park last week was arrested Wednesday in Pasadena, the Los Angeles Police Department said.
Shawn Laval Smith, 31, was arrested after an extensive manhunt across the region.
The LAPD confirmed Smith's arrest on Twitter. He was recognized as he was waiting for a bus near Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado Boulevard, according to a law enforcement source.
Brianna Kupfer was killed Thursday while working alone at the Croft House furniture store on North La Brea Avenue.
Kupfer, who was from Pacific Palisades, texted a friend about 1:36 p.m. to say she felt uncomfortable about a person who was in the store. The friend did not immediately respond, according to investigators with the LAPD.
About 20 minutes later, a customer who walked into the store found Kupfer on the floor covered in blood. She was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
The LAPD said surveillance video showed Smith entering multiple businesses in the hours leading up to Kupfer's killing. On Tuesday, the department released video showing a man inside a nearby 7-Eleven store about 30 minutes after the killing. He was described as a tall, thin Black man with braided hair, who was last seen wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt, dark pants, black tennis shoes, a white mask and a large, black backpack.
Before his arrest, Smith had been seen in Pasadena, Santa Monica, West Hollywood and other locations around Southern California, police said. Authorities believe he is unhoused and used public transportation to get around the area.
Smith was previously arrested in October 2020 on a misdemeanor in Covina. In 2016, he was arrested in Charleston County, S.C., where he pleaded guilty in 2018 to resisting or assaulting a police officer and was sentenced to time served, according to court records. Smith was marked for extradition in North Carolina on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a concealed weapon and other crimes.
Smith was also arrested in November 2019 on suspicion of firing a weapon inside an occupied vehicle, according to court records from South Carolina, where he was released on a $50,000 bond. The weapon was a flare gun, an LAPD source said. On Wednesday, a motion was made in court to revoke his bond.
Kupfer's death has "shaken and shocked our community to its core," Councilman Paul Koretz said this week. Koretz made a motion for the city to offer a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the woman's killer. The amount was increased to $250,000 by contributions from the community on Tuesday.
Efforts to reach Kupfer's family on Wednesday were not immediately successful, but her father, Todd Kupfer, told The Times on Tuesday that his daughter's death was "heart-wrenching."
"It's torn us apart," he said. "We really don't know what to do and what steps to take. We just want her life to have more meaning."
Kupfer was one of four children, all of whom grew up in Los Angeles, her father said. She ran track and was on the dance team at Brentwood High School before she went to the University of Miami.
She was taking online courses for a degree in architecture and design at UCLA, her father told The Times, adding that she loved geometrical patterns, design and drawing.
Kupfer started working at Croft House because it was a sustainable furniture company and she was passionate about such causes, her father said.
The family plans to create a foundation to honor her memory but doesn't know yet what shape that will take.
"Her candle got snuffed out way too young," Todd Kupfer said.
Times staff writers Richard Winton and Gregory Yee contributed to this report.
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Yet some want the homeless, the insane, the perverted and other human derelicts to be able to walk among us.
You have a lot of fears in you.
Don't you venture out? What is government's main duty?
I live in a 60% black neighborhood. I have never been afraid of being out and about in the neighborhood. Probably because I am very street smart.
Or maybe it's because you seldom leave your computer. I think many on the left would never live in an urban area.
Have you ever lived in a big city?
Yes I have and the police were able to do their jobs, criminals were prosecuted and we felt secure.
The big problems today are the "woke" left-wing prosecutors who are funded by the Soros Machine. Gascon is one of them, and what he does with this case will determine his future as the Los Angeles DA. So far, he's failed the people of LA County and the police department because he lets criminals walk free instead of setting them up for jail.
Residents of major cities that have DAs like Gascon (NYC, Chicago, San Fran, Baltimore, Philadelphia, etc) are terrified because of all of the deadly crime in their neighborhoods.
Nobody's fault but those that prescribe to perpetual victim status.
If someone wants to get out of that cycle, they sure as hell can do it...IF THEY TRIED.
Damned right!!!
What most of these folks don't realize, or don't want to realize, is that they have been getting played by democrats for decades.
Every 2 and 4 years democrats run to black communities, black churches, HBCs and claim they will do everything to help them if they vote for them. Unfortunately, many of them follow like sheep, but thankfully, many are seeing the light.
After these idiots get voted in, they act like the black community does not exist...until the next election.
This is even most true of black democrat politicians. They got theirs.
That is true. Many lack that quality.
Exactly.
Agree with you 110%. Some people confuse fears with caution and common sense.
I once knew a guy from Brazil. He told me one of the reasons he came was because of the safety & security of life in the US. The left wants to make this country more like the streets of Rio de Janeiro.
We have family and friends in Brazil. They're all middle to upper middle class. Those who live in private homes all have 24/7 armed guards. Those who've chosen apartment buildings only choose those which have armed private security. Sao Paulo and Rio have been dangerous for decades.
That's exactly what I've heard. We have a huge Brazilian community in MA. Every one I have met is hard working and decent folk.
It's such a shame that we as a people continue to allow those who need help to just run on their own, as if we expect them to help themselves. While the mental institutions that were shut down by the law suit from the ACLU and the law signed by President Reagan was a long time ago, there really hasn't been any movement to create a new environment / institution that can help these people. Just taking this one individual, if we would go back thru all of his court cases and legal issues how many times would we find 'mental health' mentioned. Yet nothing was done and he was allowed to go out on his own without help. How many more people will die because this is a situation that is allowed to continue, sometimes as a political partisan means.
I believe we as a people will have a lot to answer for when we stand before our Lord. How we treat those among us who need help is an accounting that we are failing, both in the world around us and for our future.
That seems to be the go to excuse lately. If they knew he had issues then why didn't the family step in to do something. Instead they wait until a tragedy like this happens to throw up that flag as if it's an excuse for their behavior.
Of course we can now see how much mayhem the ACLU has caused. We do need to find a place for these people. I'm less concerned about their welfare than I am for public safety. One must have priorities.
I gave up on the ACLU aka American Civil Leftist Union a long time ago.
So did one of it's founders
My friend that was a looong time ago and the collective memory is fading, (or are the democrat lies finally taking hold)
The dumping of the mentally ill into the streets started in California during the Governuer Moonbeam administration (the one before Reagan) they were supposed to have set up and fully funded community mental health offices to handle the patients now on the streets... Congress never funded them...
Three years later along comes Reagan, brand new governor looking for ways to save every penney he could trying to pay for all the gimmies of the moonbeam administration... And he had a system of 15 mental health facilities across the state.. Fully Funded and staffed, they were operating at 15% capacity.. There a way to save billions of dollars... So he ordered the closure of 2/3rds of them consolidating the patients in the fewer hospitals.. Of course the media has a field day with this one cause the public was already feeling the effect of thousands of mental patients being out on the street without any followup care at all thank you Goveruer Moonbeam... They raked RAKED over the coals blaming him for the mentally ill being amongst the population and disturbing their california dreaming...
But all Reagan did was finish the part Gov. Moonbeam failed to do and realize all the cost savings from booting out the mentally ill... But of course you tell a lie often enough it becomes the story...
Federally, this happened during the Carter years in office... and yes the democrat congress in passing their assistance legislation protecting the rights of the mentally ill failed to fully fund the community mental health clinics that the experts said were needed to make this turnout work...
And then Reagan gets elected to the presidency,, right, just in time to be held responsible for NOT funding the clinics for all those mentally ill HE threw out in the street....
Reagan had absolutely nothing to do with the ACLU getting all the mentally ill patients throw into the streets, and he didn't order it either... The previous democrats in the offices he held did that... (both offices)
He just got to clean their mess up and still got blamed for it...
I haven't forgotten....
Overpopulation is a major cause of this problem
This is an outrage. Time to protest and riot.
Visit the hood, break some shit, throw some bricks, burn some cars, loot a few liquor stores, shut down a locally owned business or twelve.
Time for Brianna Kupfer murals everywhere. We demand satisfaction.
We can't do that.
First the FBI scans social media for average Americans planning to meet somewhere.
Second comes the arrest and detention and the long wait to be charged and given a trial.
Did your newstalkers alert do the trick? Which NT member collared this criminal? I know I’ve been on the lookout.