LOS ANGELES () — Five years after 22-year-old Marcelis Gude was gunned down on a Watts street, his mother and the LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division say they are still searching for answers in a killing that remains as baffling as the night it happened.
Kadijah Kemp says her son was just beginning to find his footing in adulthood – a bright, energetic young man whose smile drew people in from the time he was a child.
“I feel like he was just coming into himself. He was 22,” Kemp said. “I will never get to see my son get married.”
On June 15, 2021, Gude was killed near San Pedro Street and East 102nd Street in Watts. Kemp says she had spoken to him just hours earlier.
“So he just got a fresh cut. He FaceTimed with me to show me his hair cut,” she said. “He told me that he was going out with a young lady.”
While Gude and the young woman he was with were at the location, surveillance video captured a light-colored sedan parked. Detectives say two gunmen got out of that sedan and opened fire. Bullet casing markers covered the street that night. An 8-year-old child was grazed by a stray round, while Gude was hit repeatedly.
“My son was shot over 17 times,” Kemp said.
LAPD Detective Demetrius Pontikes, who was on patrol that night and among the first officers to arrive, is now assigned to the case.
Pontikes says investigators still have no clear motive.
“We have no clue why he would have been shot. He’s not connected to the area. He’s not from here, so it’s a mystery why he was shot,” he said.
As he retraced the crime scene five years later, Pontikes said it’s possible Gude was misidentified by a local gang.
“From all accounts, he’s a good kid, never been arrested, nothing like that,” he said.
For Kemp, the lack of answers has made grieving even harder.
“It’s hard to move along the grief process, you know,” she said. “I feel like sometimes I’m still stuck in denial because I don’t have a lot of answers.”
The LAPD says witnesses saw the shooting, but the gunmen had their faces covered.
Information leading to an arrest carries a reward of up to $50,000. Anyone with information is urged to call the LAPD at 1-877-LAPD-24-7 (1-877-527-3247).
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