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USC music student killed in apparent robbery attempt

WAVE NEWSPAPERS — An Oakland City Council member March 12 hailed the life of her slain son — a USC student who was gunned down near campus in an apparent robbery attempt — saying he was a musical prodigy who will be remembered as more than just a homicide statistic. Speaking to reporters at USC, Lynette Gibson McElhaney said her 21-year-old son Victor, who was fatally shot just after midnight March 10 near Maple Avenue and Adams Boulevard, is “not a homicide number or statistic.”

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By Wave Wire Services

LOS ANGELES — An Oakland City Council member March 12 hailed the life of her slain son — a USC student who was gunned down near campus in an apparent robbery attempt — saying he was a musical prodigy who will be remembered as more than just a homicide statistic.

Speaking to reporters at USC, Lynette Gibson McElhaney said her 21-year-old son Victor, who was fatally shot just after midnight March 10 near Maple Avenue and Adams Boulevard, is “not a homicide number or statistic.”

“I want you all to know that Victor came into the world a drummer. He was drumming from the minute he could sit up,” she said. “Victor was listening for a sound. He drummed before he could walk. He drummed before he could talk.”

Police said McElhaney, a student at USC’s Thornton School of Music, was approached by three or four men in their 20s who tried to rob him, leading to the shooting.

McElhaney — who transferred to USC in 2017 — was part of the USC jazz studies program with an interest in the relationship between music and social and political movements. He also mentored young musicians and taught at the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music.

“He played for weddings and funerals and christenings and bar mitzvahs,” Lynette McElhaney said. “Can you imagine African drums at a bar mitzvah? That’s what he did. And he believed that music could heal the world of violence and sickness and addiction. And his desire to bring music medicine, that’s what he called it, to the world brought him to Los Angeles, the city of angels.

Victor came here because he wanted to be in the pantheon of all this great jazz tradition” at USC, she said.

McElhaney joked that her son didn’t care about actually getting a degree.

“There’s a part of him that really wanted to [be] a college dropout so he could keep his street cred,” she said. “But he didn’t mind being part of this Trojan family.

“And we felt bonded and loved at this place. So I want to say thank you SC. … He walked here, he was tall here and you all loved him.”

Interim USC President Wanda Austin sent out a statement informing the USC community of McElhaney’s death. In it she expressed her condolences to his family and friends.

“He believed in the power of music to touch lives to heal and to bring hope,” Austin said.

McElhaney’s killing is the latest of several high-profile killings of students in apparent robberies or attempted robberies near USC’s campus in the past seven years.

Alberto Ochoa, the last of four defendants charged in the July 24, 2014, beating death of Xinran Ji, a USC graduate student from China, was sentenced March 8 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Two others, Alejandra Guerrero and Andrew Garcia, had already been sentenced to life in prison without parole, while the getaway driver, Jonathan Del Carmen, was ordered to serve a 15-year-to-life state prison sentence.

Ji had been walking back to his apartment near campus after a study session when he was attacked, and managed to make it back to his apartment, where one of his roommates discovered the 24-year-old electrical engineering student’s body.

Two other USC graduate students from China, Ying Wu and Ming Qu, were shot to death during an April 2012 robbery as they sat in a car that was double-parked on a street near the USC campus. Javier Bolden and Bryan Barnes were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for their killings.

Anyone with information on the McElhaney homicide is asked to call LAPD’s Southwest Division at (213) 485-2582. Tips also can be submitted to Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-TIPS.

This article originally appeared in Wave Newspapers

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Oakland Post: Week of June 4 – 10, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 4-10, 2025

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Remembering George Floyd

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing.

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Mural showing the portrait of George Floyd in Mauerpark in Berlin. To the left of the portrait the lettering "I can't Breathe" was added, on the right side the three hashtags #GeorgeFloyd, #Icantbreathe and #Sayhisname. The mural was completed by Eme Street Art (facebook name) / Eme Free Thinker (signature) on 29 May 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)
Mural showing the portrait of George Floyd in Mauerpark in Berlin. To the left of the portrait the lettering "I can't Breathe" was added, on the right side the three hashtags #GeorgeFloyd, #Icantbreathe and #Sayhisname. The mural was completed by Eme Street Art (facebook name) / Eme Free Thinker (signature) on 29 May 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)

By April Ryan
BlackPressUSA Newswire

“The president’s been very clear he has no intentions of pardoning Derek Chauvin, and it’s not a request that we’re looking at,” confirms a senior staffer at the Trump White House. That White House response results from public hope, including from a close Trump ally, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The timing of Greene’s hopes coincides with the Justice Department’s recent decision to end oversight of local police accused of abuse. It also falls on the fifth anniversary of the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25th. The death sparked national and worldwide outrage and became a transitional moment politically and culturally, although the outcry for laws on police accountability failed.

The death forced then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to focus on deadly police force and accountability. His efforts while president to pass the George Floyd Justice in policing act failed. The death of George Floyd also put a spotlight on the Black community, forcing then-candidate Biden to choose a Black woman running mate. Kamala Harris ultimately became vice president of the United States alongside Joe Biden. Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the cases against the officers involved in the death of Floyd. He remembers,” Trump was in office when George Floyd was killed, and I would blame Trump for creating a negative environment for police-community relations. Remember, it was him who said when the looting starts, the shooting starts, it was him who got rid of all the consent decrees that were in place by the Obama administration.”

In 2025, Police-involved civilian deaths are up by “about 100 to about 11 hundred,” according to Ellison. Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African-American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing. During those minutes on the ground, Floyd cried out for his late mother several times. Police subdued Floyd for an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.

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Oakland Post: Week of May 28 – June 30, 2025

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