Quanisha Pitts, 17
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Quanisha Pitts, 17, a young black woman, was struck in the back and neck by gunfire in the 1200 block of South Wadsworth Avenue in Compton. Her time of death at a hospital was listed as 12:54 a.m. Saturday, May 26.
She had gone a movie that night in Lakewood with a young man, 21. Before he took her back to her parents, he had brought her by his own parents’ house in Compton for a brief visit. She had to be home by midnight, and they were running a little late. The young man was in a hurry to get Quanisha home as soon as possible, and they got back into the car.
They pulled out and passed some young men standing on the street--gang members, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Det. Todd Anderson. As the group receded in the rearview mirror, the back windshield shattered. One of the people on the street had fired a gun--a bullet out of the dark.
It struck Quanisha, leaving her severely wounded. Her date kept driving, speeding away to safety with Quanisha bleeding next to him. He took two turns, pulled into the front yard of her parents’ home nearby, and frantically leaned on the horn. Her family came running out, and saw her there. ‘A really good girl. A hard-working guy,’ Anderson said of the pair. ‘He is just completely torn up by this.’