Crime & Safety
VIDEO: Mysterious Killing of Vartan Avatyan Still Haunts North Hollywood
The teenager was shot in the back on Oct. 17, 2010.
It is chilling to think that the man who in the back was apparently just looking for someone to kill.
In the accompanying video, you will meet Vartan Avatyan through the words of his brother.
As police tell it, the 18-year-old victim went to see a film in North Hollywood last October, along with two friends. When the film ended, the group left the theatre on Coldwater Canyon and Victory Boulevard and headed for a Subway sandwich shop. They missed the shop’s midnight closing by minutes. It was now 12:15 a.m., October 17, 2010. They headed for another Subway shop, but first stopped at a traffic light. There, on the corner of Sherman Way and Lankershim, they saw the El Michoacano taco stand and made a fateful decision. “Why not?” they thought. “Let’s stop here instead.” They ordered and paid for their food at the stand’s small window, then decided to eat in the back parking lot on the trunk of their car.
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As they were eating, one of the friends looked back and saw a man emerge from a four-door, dark, compact car. That man pulled a gun from his waistband. Avatyan’s friend yelled “Gun!.” The three friends ran as bullets flew. The gun-wielding criminal The teenager died at the scene.
Ayatyan’s friends did not know the killer. This was not a robbery. It might, police think, have been a gang initiation, a twisted “right of passage” where a potential gang member must take a life as proof of his dedication to the criminal group. Avatyan was not a gang member. He was a working class teenager with dreams of a becoming of chef, of starting a family, of living his life.
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Police say the three workers inside the taco stand heard the gunfire, shut off the lights and hit the floor. That was their routine. This wasn’t the first time they’d heard gunfire around their small restaurant.
The killer ran back to the car driven by another person. The two headed west on Sherman Way.
Police provided the attached sketch you see here. The suspect is:
A Hispanic man
Age 18-22.
5’7” to 5’ 8 1/2
Between 170 and 180 lbs.
Police need someone to come forward with information. So does Vartan’s family. Anyone who was in the area of Sherman Way and Lankershim, after midnight, October 17, 2010 can help by calling North Hollywood Detective Kevin Royce at (818) 623-4016. You can even give information anonymously at Crimestoppers, 800-222-8477.
The city council is offering a $50,000 reward for anyone who gives information that leads to the arrest and conviction of Vartan’s killer.
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