Tevin Price: Special Needs Teen Shot To Death In Front Of His Mother For Refusing To Take Off His Shoes

Tevin Price was at a South Los Angeles car wash with his mother when a gang member approached the 19-year-old, asking if his red shoes were gang affiliated.

The special needs teen said they were not, then refused when the gang member told him to take off the shoes. But as Tevin and his mother tried to retreat to her car, the gang member opened fire anyway.

“He didn’t take them off, he ran to me, and then I said ‘Let’s go,’ ” Price’s mother, Jennifer Rivers, told KTLA on Monday. “And I was getting in the car. Before we can get in the car, the boy ran behind my car and shot him in the back twice and in the chest. ”

Tevin was killed.

Rivers said she ran after the men but couldn’t catch them, so she returned to her son, who was dying of the gunshots.

“Watching my son beg me, ‘Mommy, I don’t want to die. I do not want to die, mommy. Help me,’ ” Rivers recalled, her voice choking up. “That’s hard for me.”

Tevin Price was just days before his 20th birthday, but instead of celebrating this week, family and friends gathered to mourn his death.

This was not the only grisly murder making headlines in recent weeks. In Guatemala, graphic video emerged showing a mob burning a 16-year-old girl to death.

The girl, who was accused of murdering a taxi driver, was beaten by many members of a growing vigilante mob, and her lifeless body was then set on fire.

Just a few weeks earlier, a basketball brawl made national headlines after 18-year-old Ywron Martins was stabbed to death. The fight, which involved hundreds of people, was recorded by many people on cell phones and the footage of the disturbing incident went viral.

Friends and family remembered Martins as a happy teen who was proud about his job.

“He was an outgoing kid. He always had a smile on his face. He always hoped for the best. He never went for the worst,” Merlino said, according to the Boston Globe. “He liked to work. I knew he had a little job or something because he would always be writing on Facebook, ‘Time to go to work. Time to get this money.’ He had pride into moving on in his life somewhere other than these streets of Brockton. And now it’s crazy that he’s gone.”

Police said surveillance video captured the murder of Tevin Price, though they have not yet released the video or announced a suspect.

[Image via KTLA]