Posted on 05/26/2004 12:53:20 PM PDT by ambrose
Navy sailor back from Iraq shot to death outside nightclub
ASSOCIATED PRESS
10:55 p.m. May 25, 2004
LOS ANGELES ? A Navy sailor who had returned from active duty in Iraq was shot and killed early Tuesday outside a nightclub, police said.
Brian Keith Butler Jr., 25, was standing outside the club with a friend when one or more gunmen walked up and fired up to 30 rounds at them, officials said.
Both Butler and his friend, Melvin Deonte Knowles, also 25, died as a result of their wounds, said Sgt. Dominic Choi.
Butler had returned to his family home in suburban Gardena in March after a tour of duty in the Persian Gulf. The former basketball star at Gardena High School previously was posted in Japan during his four years of service, said his aunt, Desdra Butler.
"We're at peace. We're a family that believes in God," she said. "And so we know that God's will is being done right now, and that we pray for not only our family but for the family of the people who did this to us."
Police said the club where the two were killed is known as a popular hangout for one of the city's most notorious gangs, but neither of the victims were gang members.
Right here in Los Angeles, kind of like Baghdad.
Gang bangers are candy assed cowards, always have been always will be.
He survives Iraq only be be gunned down by thugs. This is just crazy.
The U.S. Navy is a pretty big gang. Too bad the rules of engagement don't apply in LA.
Or is it? ;)
U.S. Sailor Home from Mideast Killed in LA Club
Wed May 26, 2004 03:55 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A U.S. sailor who came home safely from the Gulf was killed along with a childhood friend outside a Los Angeles nightclub in what may be a gang-involved shooting, police said on Wednesday.Police said Brian Keith Butler Jr., a Navy petty officer, and his high school pal, Melvin Deonte Knowles, were not gang members and may not have known that the strip club where they were shot on Monday night was a gang hangout.
Butler, 25, had returned in March from a tour of duty on a destroyer based in Bahrain, family members said.
He and Knowles, 25, were shot by two armed men as they left Charlie's, a strip club in South Los Angeles that advertises "Girls! Girls! Girls!" in its front window.
The two friends were "walking toward their vehicle when unknown suspects approached them, and they were both armed and fired at both Mr. Butler and Mr. Knowles," LAPD gang Detective Rudy Lemos told reporters.
Police are still looking for the suspects.
Butler's 16-year-old brother, Kyle, told a local television station that he was proud of his brother's military service but sad that his death came at the hands of his own countrymen.
"He got to travel, he got to see the world, unlike a lot of us," Butler said. "So, I'm very proud he did what he wanted to do.... Truly I am very upset, that he could survive in Iraq, but can't survive L.A."
From the Los Angeles Times
Safe in War, Sailor Slain at L.A. Club
Brian Butler Jr. was on leave from the Persian Gulf when he and a friend were shot to death in a parking lot.
Times Staff Writers
May 26, 2004
He was a sailor on leave from duty in the Persian Gulf, out for a night on the town with a high school buddy and the buddy's girlfriend.
They ended up at a Southwest Los Angeles nightclub that is a hangout for one of the city's street gangs. A few minutes before midnight Monday, both men were gunned down with a rifle as they stood in the parking lot of a strip joint called Charlie's.
And as police investigated the killings, what seemed almost certain was that neither man knew he was on dangerous ground until it was too late.
The petty officer, Brian Keith Butler Jr. of Gardena, and his friend, Melvin Deonte Knowles of Lakewood, both 25, were killed near 9th and Florence avenues in Hyde Park. Police Det. Rudy Lemos of the 77th Street Division described them as "clean, good, all-American kids" who had been friends since high school.
"They weren't from here," he said. "They didn't know the area."
Butler, he added bitterly, "was probably safer in the Middle East than he was here."
As detectives reconstructed the killings, the men left Charlie's because Knowles' girlfriend was uncomfortable with the club scene. The woman, who was not hurt, had already gotten into the car and was waiting for them. But as they lingered briefly outside the vehicle, a gunman walked up and fired at least 30 shots, then fled in a red sport utility vehicle carrying other passengers...CLICK HERE for the rest of that article
I was in LA for a couple weeks many years ago. Not a day went by that I wasn't either the victim of or witness to a violent crime. The police refused to even file a report in any of the incidents except one - a physical assault with intent to rape. For that, they said I could travel to one of the precincts and fill out a report. They refused to come to the scene, because the perpetrator was still in the area. The robbery that occurred 3 feet in front of a cop who witnessed it went unreported. The cop refused to even fill out a report or take statements from witnesses. LA should come with a big warning label "Enter at your own risk. No police protection. Illegal to protect yourself."
Hum. Maybe after hanging out in Iraq this place didn't look much different than over there?
LA is a quagmire.
you know that would make sense wouldn't it? considering that there are: "anti-american sentiments," right here in our homeland, and that those who hold to that "aas feeling" have the abilities to gain access to weapons as those used that night..., and the fact that they put their women in strip clubs and they work the drugs as well..., you see federal gov. does not allow for their crimes.
i don't think it was a mistaken identity at all. gangbangers can't mistake a tall person like Butler Jr., ppl should have known he came back from Iraq and was in the Navy..., besides sounds like they were waiting for them to get out of the club doesn't it?
its an american wake up call.
-nn
May God Bless this sailor and his family. I will keep the prayers incoming because these are my people. Now I will say something that may not be taken well but I don't care. When the Feinsteins, Pelosis, and the Boxers want to only let the bad guys have guns THIS is what happens. Mrs. Feinstein has a CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT, what a HYPOCRITE. I'm not saying that everone has to have one. There has to be enough law-abiding citizens that want to be allowed to carry. I know there will be a lot of people commenting back that I'm terrible and so are guns. I don't care what they think because someone in my extended family has been killed by a ruthless gang member. The SECOND AMENDMENT was put in the Constitution for law-abiding citizens and no matter what the Ninth Circuit Circus says it is a collective and A INDIVIDUAL RIGHT. The gang members have to know that they won't be allowed to be the BULLIES of the street. Read your history and you'll see that. May God Bless this Sailor!
I don't think so.
BULLIES & COWARDS. They are brave knowing that they are the only ones with GUNS, thanks to the Liberals.
We Need to take LA back! ! ! !
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