Roxy Borboa had just celebrated her 16th birthday last Sunday. She was gunned down on Tuesday night while sitting in a Toyota Camry with four other people near Dakota Avenue and Gardendale Street.
"It feels so bad that we didn't get to see her grow older. We wished we did," said the victim's sister Anabel Fernandez.
Borboa's friend Jesse Casillas and her boyfriend Ricardo Monroy were with her at the time of the shooting. Their friend, who was driving, turned down Dakota Avenue when a group of men approached the car.
"They were like, 'Oh where you guys from? What's your (gang) bang?' We were like, 'Nah homie, we don't bang, we're cool, you know, we're just out here to chill,'" Monroy said.
Monroy said the men appeared to be gang members, and they pointed guns with lasers at the car. At that point, Monroy told the friend to drive away. But as they drove away, one of the men opened fire. The bullet flew through the rear window, hitting the Bell High School student in the back of the head.
"They just shot at us ... It's just messed up because she wasn't supposed to be taken like that. She was innocent," Casillas said. "Everybody just started crying and going crazy. Because she was a loved, she was a loved person. She was important to the world, but I don't know why they took her from us."
Monroy said they drove away as fast as they could, but they got lost trying to find the hospital. They were able to flag down a sheriff's deputy in Lynwood. Paramedics rushed Borboa to St. Francis Medical Center, where she was later pronounced dead.
"I had my shirt full of blood because I was just hugging her, talking to her, holding her hand. You know, it hurts a lot. She was the love of my life, and I love her," Monroy said.
Detectives are reviewing possible surveillance video from the scene of the shooting and continue to hunt for the suspects. Monroy says the suspects were driving a black Ford Expedition with tinted windows.
"We weren't trying to start problems with anybody, you know what I mean? They just wanted to start problems with anybody, that's what they wanted to do, and they did it," Casillas said.
Anyone with information is urged to call the L.A. County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500.
The victim was earlier identified as Roxy Borboa Galindo. The family says Borboa is her father's last name and Galindo is her mother's last name, but the victim just went by her father's last name.
