City Council offers $75,000 reward for info


The City of Los Angeles is offering a $75,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the shooter of Ming Qu and Ying Wu, two Viterbi School of Engineering graduate students who were fatally shot April 11.

The city’s reward adds to the university’s $125,000 reward announced at a press conference Friday. The reward for information now totals to $200,000.

Search · L.A. City Council approved a $75,000 reward to be offered to anyone with information on the suspect from the April 11 shooting. - Otto Hsiao | Daily Trojan

Michael L. Jackson, vice president for student affairs, said he did not know about the additional reward money before the announcement.

“It is another indication of how committed and united the City of Los Angeles is in finding out who killed our students and bring them to justice,” Jackson said in a statement. “We are very grateful for the support of the City [Council.]”

Councilmember Bernard C. Parks introduced the reward motion to the City Council during Tuesday morning’s meeting.

Councilmember Jan Perry seconded the motion, and the 15-member council — 14 of whom were present — unanimously approved the reward.

“The second that [the shooting] happened, [Parks] wanted to immediately put out a reward for the slayings, and then USC came out with a reward, so LAPD asked us to put it on hold for a week,” said Brittney Marin, press deputy for Parks’ office. “Today was the first day that we were able to go through with our reward motion.”

The race and gender of the suspect are unknown. The possible suspect was last seen wearing dark clothes running southbound after shooting Qu and Wu in Qu’s double-parked car outside of Wu’s residence on the 2700 block of Raymond Avenue.

Anyone with information is encouraged to call the LAPD’s Criminal Gang Homicide Division at (213) 485-4341 or the Detective Information Desk at the 24-hour toll-free number 877-LAPD-24-7.