$50,000 reward offered for information in Bijan Shoushtari's death

Los Angeles police detectives have pored over each available surveillance video, walked up and down Crenshaw Boulevard and interviewed more than 100 people in the death of 18-year-old Bijan Shoushtari. But they’re still looking for more information.

Investigators on Thursday announced a $50,000 reward approved by the city in the case. They also released a composite sketch of a person seen in the area at the time of the shooting.

Shoushtari was a passenger in a 1973 Buick Electra traveling north on Crenshaw Boulevard approaching Vernon Avenue about midnight Aug. 3 when a gray or silver vehicle, also traveling north, approached and a person inside opened fire, striking Shoushtari, said LAPD Det. Supervisor Sal LaBarbera.

The music was loud enough in the Buick that the driver and another passenger didn't hear the shots. Shoushtari, who wanted to become a paramedic and volunteered at a fire station after church on Sundays, might have been mistaken for a rival gang member, LaBarbera said. 

Flanked by family and friends, Marsha Jones-Shoushtari told reporters gathered at the LAPD 77th Street Community Police Station that if she could talk to her son's killer, she would want to know about the person's life.

She said she'd want to know how that person grew up, how that person was loved, and everything about how her son died. "I wanna know why, I wanna know when, I wanna know how," she said.

As the months drag on, Jones-Shoushtari said that she has faith that police will catch her son's killer.

She hopes the crime is weighing on that person's conscience.

"They have to stop and think, 'What if it happened to me?'" she said. "In a million years, I never thought this would happen to me and my family."

In the meantime, Jones-Shoushtari, her husband and their two daughters are coping with the loss of a son and brother. "There's not a day that goes by or a moment that goes by that I'm not reminded of my baby," she said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Paul Funicello at (213) 485-4341.

-- Nicole Santa Cruz

Photo: Marsha Jones-Shoushtari and her husband, Mano Shoushtari, are flanked by their daughters Samantha, 26, left, and Ea, 20, at their home in Los Angeles on Aug. 7. Their son Bijan, 18, died Aug. 3 after being shot. Credit: Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times