Shopping Center Manager Seeks Exit From Wrongful Death Lawsuit – MyNewsLA.com
The manager of a South Los Angeles shopping center where a 27-year-old man was fatally shot after picking up food in what is still an unsolved crime is asking a judge to dismiss him as a defendant in the family’s wrongful death/negligence lawsuit.
Nicole Williams brought the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit on behalf of herself and her grandson, who was 7 years old when his father, Antonio Maurice Wilson Williams, was killed in 2017. Charles Peter Scurich managed the Vermont Square commercial center at 43rd Street and Vermont Avenue at the time, the suit states. The boy is now 13 years old.
“Plaintiffs have no evidence and cannot establish that Scurich participated in or engaged in any individual activities giving rise to any conduct which contributed to or resulted in decedent’s death,” the defense attorneys argue in their court papers filed Friday with Judge Lee Arian in advance of a hearing scheduled May 9, 2025.
Los Angeles police previously said that Williams, who was known in the community as Tony, was in a group of people standing in the parking lot of the shopping center after picking up his food to take home when someone walked up and fired shots into the crowd at about 6 p.m. on Nov. 14, 2017.
The shooter fled to a waiting car and remains at large, the suit states. Williams underwent surgeries for gunshot injuries to his colon, liver and heart before he died 16 days after being shot.
The shopping center “was a hub of criminal and gang activity and was the site of multiple shootings,” the suit alleges.
Previous crimes at the location included murder, drive-by shootings, robberies, attempted robberies, batteries and a constant presence of gang members, according to the complaint, which says a man was shot five times outside a nail salon located within the center in one of the earlier incidents that year.
Despite knowing about such violence, the shopping center owners did not have any security guards present or any type of security system in place to protect patrons, the suit brought in November 2019 states.
But defense attorneys state in their court papers that Scurich was not present at the time of the shooting and had no involvement in what happened.
“Accordingly, defendant Charles Peter Scurich is entitled to judgment as a matter of law,” the defense lawyers conclude in their pleadings.
Williams lived with his mother and was a singer-songwriter who had studied to be an ultrasound technician so that he could help support his mother and son, the suit states.
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