Approved ~ MJM
Los Angeles police identified the man they say stabbed UCLA student Brianna Kupfer to death inside a high-end furniture store where she worked, hours after offering a record-breaking $250,000 reward.
Shawn Laval Smith, 31, was considered armed and dangerous and “highly likely to be using public transportation,” the LAPD announced Tuesday.
The force said he was the masked man seen on video buying a vape pen from a 7-Eleven just 30 minutes after the random murder last Thursday.
“This individual responsible for this vicious, senseless and brutal crime walks amongst us,” L.A. Police Chief Michel Moore said during a press conference.
Smith’s criminal record includes charges for gun crimes as well as an attack on a cop, records show.
He was in October 2020 released on $1,000 bail after a misdemeanor arrest in California that prosecutors chose not to press charges on, the Covina Police Department said.
He also appears to be free on a $50,000 bond in South Carolina in relation to a November 2019 arrest on suspicion of firing a weapon into an occupied vehicle, court records show.
Kupfer’s father, Todd Kupfer, told The Post he “heard his rap sheet is much worse” — insisting police told him that the suspect in his daughter’s slaying should have been behind bars.
His 24-year-old daughter was killed the afternoon of Jan. 13 in a random attack as she worked alone in the store at Croft House on North La Brea Ave., police said.
She had texted a friend to say someone came into the store and was “giving her a bad vibe,” LAPD Lt. John Radtke said at a news conference prior to the release of the suspect’s identity.
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