LOS ANGELES (KNX) — Just over one year ago 31-year-old Lentrail Hicks was walking home when he got into an altercation with two men in the 6700 block of South Compton Avenue, near 68th Street. A situation that ultimately ended in the suspects fatally stabbing Hicks and never being put behind bars, according to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
Family members and investigators with the Sheriff’s Department announced a $20,000 reward Thursday, for any information that helps them solve the cold case.
“Whoever knows or [saw] anything, please come forward,” Paula Stringer, Hicks’ mother said. “I’m not angry, I’m more hurt than anything. The anger has passed. My son was a loving father, a devoted brother, a loving son and he did not deserve this.”
Surveillance footage shared at a conference with news outlets Thursday shows what led up to Hicks’ death. In it he’s seen walking northbound on the west sidewalk of South Compton Avenue at the same time that two men are walking southbound on the same side of the street. Footage shows that, when their paths cross, they seem to have some sort of verbal argument, though no physical action is taken and Hicks keeps walking.
However, later in the footage, a dark gray vehicle believed to be a 2005-2009 Toyota Prius is seen approaching Hicks on the wrong side of the road, and a physical fight takes place as people dressed like the men seen earlier in the video get out of the vehicle.
“Both men [appear] to attack Lentrail and at some point you see what looks like a stabbing motion from the man in the whitelogoed black shirt,” LASD Lt. Alfred Derrick said at the news conference.
“At that point you can kind of see in the video [Lentrail] looks down, realizing he’s been stabbed…the two men retreat back to the car…Lentrail retreats northbound away from them…the care makes a u-turn in the middle of the intersection and then speeds away westbound on 68th street.”
After the fight, LASD said Hicks continued to his mother’s home, told her he’d been stabbed and was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where he died of his injuries two days later.
Sheriff's detectives said the two suspects are believed to be Hispanic men between the age of 18 and 22 years old. They were last seen leaving the scene in a dark gray Toyota Prius with a model year between 2005 and 2009.
In a plea for help from the community, Hicks’ girlfriend Keilah Duren - who is the mother of his young daughter - said Hicks was a good father who deserved more than to be randomly stabbed in the street.
“I ask that the community please help to bring these people to justice because he didn’t deserve this. He was a college grad, he was a Tuskegee football player…great all-around student. He loved his daughter more than anything in the world,” Duren said.
“I just want to make sure that I get justice for my daughter who is scared to go outside…and she just wants to make sure the person is caught so that they don’t hurt her.”
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