Double killing in Exposition Park leaves friends and family reeling

Early Sunday morning, Salvador Medina awoke to gunshots in his front yard in Exposition Park. Outside he found his close friend Alfonso Nava, a 26-year-old Latino, on the sidewalk choking on his own blood. Another friend, Diego Garcia, a 25-year old Latino, had collapsed in rosebushes nearby. His gunshot wounds also proved fatal.

“There was blood everywhere, on the steps and everything,” said Medina, 20, of Nava's injuries. “I looked and saw my friend just twitching. I felt his heart, I hugged him, and he was gone. He was holding my arm, and I just felt him let go. My shorts, my stomach, my arm, they were all covered in blood.”

Benjamin Gottlieb and Mary Slosson of USC’s Neon Tommy/Annenberg Digital News reported on the killings for the Homicide Report. Their dispatch is one in a series of reports from USC students working in partnership with The Times.

Photo: Salvador Medina, Roberto Nava and Manuel Balderas with friends at the Nava/Garcia memorial. Credit: Mary Slosson