College coach has been here before: Promising student-athlete is lost to violence

Brett Peabody has coached college football for 14 years in South Los Angeles and Long Beach, and he's learned that sometimes his student-athletes need more than grit on the field; they need it to survive their everyday lives.

Kejon Atkins, 22, had it. But it still wasn't enough.

"Here's a young black man just walking down the street in the wrong side of town. ... It's terrible, just terrible," Peabody said.

Atkins was near his Willowbrook home, walking along East 126th Street at Wilmington Avenue, when two cars pulled up and someone shot him just before noon on July 23, 2015. 

"You can't help where you grow up," Peabody said. "You live where you can afford to live, and in Southern California, it's not easy."

Atkins played football for Mayfair High School in Lakewood and met Peabody, who was a coach at Los Angeles Harbor College. Atkins followed Peabody to Long Beach City College the following year. 

"We have a lot of kids from a lot of different neighborhoods, and Kejon got along with everybody," said Peabody, who is also a teacher at Long Beach. "He always had a smile on his face; that's the biggest thing. He was a good, down-to-earth kid, polite, respectful and coachable. When we heard he passed, we were all heartbroken."

Atkins got on the roster for Long Beach, but he never played. "When he came to practice, he worked really hard and had a good amount of talent. He could have been a scholarship kid, but it was tough because he couldn't be there consistently enough. He had to go to work, or whatever else was happening at the time. He had to make ends meet."

Peabody lost another promising athlete on Sept. 16, 2010, when Vicenson "Vinny" Edwards, 24, was shot a few minutes after he drove away from practice, near Pacific Coast Highway and Figueroa Street in Wilmington.

"He was a reformed gang member on a roll, doing great things at school," Peabody said. 

"He was targeted and murdered. They pulled up alongside him and unloaded into him. My receiver coach was just two cars behind him when it happened, and we were all at the hospital as he died. ... They got the guy, thank God." 

Omar Rendon, then 27, was charged with murder, seven counts of assault with a firearm, three counts of shooting at an occupied motor vehicle and two counts of possession of a firearm by a felon in September 2010, according to records from the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. A jury convicted Rendon on all counts in June 2012, and he was sentenced to 198 years in state prison. 

Atkins, like Edwards, seemed determined to improve his life, Peabody said. "We see it so many times — sports is the carrot, the lure, but then comes their education, and that's their saving grace," he said. 

"I work with an amazing set of young men who were dealt a crappy set of hands, but once you see them embrace education, a lot more succeed than fail. It's really sad because Kejon could have been one of those kids, because he was obviously bright and had a good future."

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the conviction of Atkins' killers. Anyone with information is asked to call the Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500. Those wishing to remain anonymous should call Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477.