The crime Shanice Amanda Dyer committed as a 17-year-old was as horrific as it was seemingly random.
She was a documented member of a Crips street gang faction in South L.A., according to appellate records from the case, and she wanted to help retaliate for killings by a rival group in August 2019.
The targets the gang chose at random were an expectant father, Alfredo Carrera, and his close friend Jose Antonio Flores Vasquez, an aspiring astrophysicist in UC Irvine’s doctorate program who was visiting Carrera to drop off a baby gift. A car pulled up, with Dyer inside. After a brief argument, authorities said, Dyer and two other defendants unleashed a volley of gunfire, killing both men. A third man down the street was wounded in the back as he loaded his 1-year-old daughter into a car seat.
Dyer sent text messages taking responsibility for the shooting, saying she was “satisfied” it made headlines, according to a court of appeals filing that documented evidence gathered from her Instagram account.