The Brief

While implementation of California’s high school ethnic studies mandate has stalled, districts across the state are rolling out classes that encourage students to explore the lesser-told histories of their communities.

Freshmen at Duarte High School this year unearthed the history of a San Gabriel Valley community that was all but erased by commercial development and the construction of the 210 and 605 freeways.

Newspaper headlines often focused on incidents of violence and segregation in the majority Black and Mexican American community of Rocktown, but when the students interviewed former residents, they heard a different story.

“It was a great community for us,” said Alfred Hernandez Zamora. “We just don't want to be forgotten.”

The study of Rocktown was a central theme in the school's first ethnic studies course.

“Ethnic studies is providing space to hear from communities and from points of view that are not traditionally covered in our history classes,” said Casey Ramirez, who teaches the class at Duarte High in addition to government, economics, world and U.S. history.

California legislators passed a law in 2021 that required all schools to offer the course by the 2025-26 school year, but have yet to provide the funding needed to enact the mandate. Duarte Unified, like many other districts, passed its own one-semester ethnic studies graduation requirement ahead of the expected state deadline.

Duarte High School’s curriculum is the result of a collaboration between educators, research into the region’s history and the students’ own interests.

“I've only seen one part of Duarte, and that's the Duarte that I was raised in,” said Leslie Martinez, a rising sophomore. “There's a lot of things that Ms. Ramirez is teaching me, and that's making me more curious to dig deeper [into] my city and where I grew up.”

An opportunity to create an ‘engaging class’

California’s model ethnic studies curriculum describes the field as an “interdisciplinary study of race, ethnicity, and Indigeneity, with an emphasis on the experiences of people of color in the United States.” Districts could develop their course based on this framework or from scratch.

“It was our opportunity to create a really engaging class that really speaks to our student body,” said Luis Haro, Duarte High’s principal for the last eight years.

The majority of Duarte High School’s population is Latino, but there are also Filipino, Asian, white, Black and multiracial students. Most students qualify for free-and reduced price lunches, a proxy for being low-income in public schools.

“In my experience, our students don't know our history, and they don't really have a true understanding of their own identity,” Haro said.

Haro joined a committee of administrators and teachers, including Ramirez, that collaborated with the UCLA History-Geography Project to develop the new course.

UCLA staff guided Duarte educators through reams of local history research and helped the team develop goals for the class, including a student-led civics project.

“Getting to learn and feel like a college student again,” Ramirez said. “It really did make me excited to teach the class.”

They also developed units on students’ personal identity, Indigenous, Latino, Black and Asian American Pacific Islander history. The committee also met with parents and presented their work to the district’s board.

“[Ethnic studies] gave us a path to this project to see people in our community that aren't really talked about,” Ramirez said.

Uncovering the history of the ‘Davis Addition’

The region is the original home of the Gabrielino/Tongva Nation. The then-governor of Alta California granted former soldier Andres Avelino Duarte nearly 7,000 acres in 1841, including what became the city that shared his name. The area was eventually subdivided into farms and eventually, homes.

From the late 19th century through the 1970s, Black and Mexican American families settled in the “Davis Addition,” a subdivision of the land grant that became better known as Rocktown.

Ramirez first read about Rocktown in the research UCLA gathered for the curriculum development process, but couldn’t find much else about the community online.

She started downloading news articles from Newspapers.com and sharing them with the class. Many of the stories often focused on crime and violence in the community, from police raids on drinking and gambling establishments, to fires.

The articles also alluded to the segregation of the early 20th century.

A 1928 article from the Monrovia Daily News described the schedule for a new municipal pool. Mondays were “reserved for the use of colored people.”

“ Why are we not allowing people to do things simply because of the color of their skin or like their origin?” said Khloe Carter, a rising sophomore who took the ethnic studies class.

Carter said it felt important to her, as a person of color, to learn about people’s experiences with discrimination in the past.

“I'd say that has made me smarter and more aware of other people's struggles and what other people have to deal with and other people's cultures and other people's traditions,” Carter said.

The first wave of Rocktown displacement preceded the construction of the 210 and 605 freeways in the 1960s. The last several dozen families were moved to make way for a business complex in the 1970s. Stories referred to the area as blighted and “depressed.”

“ We took it as our job to dig further, deeper, to find out if it was true or not,” Martinez said.

With Ramirez’s help — and several volunteers from the Facebook group Rocktown Oldies Club — the students started to schedule interviews with former residents. The school’s film class volunteered to record the conversations.

The students heard stories about everyday life that were absent from the news coverage of time — Sunday barbecues, roller skating, fishing, picnicking and swimming near the Santa Fe Dam.

Zamora, who was born in Rocktown in 1949, offered a first-person history that isn’t available elsewhere — down to the community’s name: “ You could not even dig a, a foot into the ground without running into rocks,” he said. “ You could throw water on the ground and a rock would grow, you know?”

Many of the residents raised goats, pigs, pigeons and chickens in their backyards. Zamora said a routine car repair could quickly become a community gathering with neighbors joining in to help.

“That made it … so great to live there, 'cause everybody was like family,” Zamora said. “Even people that weren't related to you, it was really close friendships there.”

A typical gathering of Alfred Hernandez Zamora's family in an undated photo from their Rocktown days. Everyone gathered for Sunday dinners at his grandmother's house.

(

Courtesy Alfred Hernandez Zamora

)

Zamora's relatives Rayno Hernandez and Christina Hernandez Padilla as kids riding their bikes through Rocktown.

(

Courtesy Alfred Hernandez Zamora

)

Zamora said Rocktown offered a reprieve from the discrimination against Black and Latino residents in other parts of the San Gabriel Valley at the time.

“We played ball together. We swam together. We ate together,” Zamora said. “Even though there was different cultures there, we still were able to get along with everybody.”

These interviews gave the students new perspectives to consider.

“ People make a lot of stereotypes and a lot of guesses … like, ‘Oh, this community can be so ghetto,’" Martinez said. “But honestly, like I think if you haven't been in the community, you can't really say anything.”

Remembering Rocktown

The Duarte Historical Museum hosted a pop-up exhibition of the students’ capstone project.

“I was very impressed with the job that they did, being able to get all this history and the information and the interviews with people,” said Liz Reilly, president of the Duarte Historical Society and Museum and former mayor. "I thought that was really fabulous.”

Reilly, who moved to Duarte in 1987, had heard of Rocktown, but knew little about the neighborhood.

Izzy Guzman, another student who took ethnic studies at Duarte High, said the account she heard from the three women she interviewed differed from these Rocktown headlines.   "They've all seemed really nice and really genuine," Guzman said. "I just feel like people should understand, even if they don't know what Rocktown is, they should understand that, it was just a basic community, and that they should be treated with the same respect as everyone else."

(

Mariana Dale

/

LAist

)

The exhibition included a map of Rocktown (still the subject of some debate) and dozens of historical photos, often provided by the people they interviewed.

“ I found it so amazing how much people showed up for our project and how much the community of Rocktown has shown up for our project,” Carter said.

Former residents, including Zamora, were among the dozens of people who attended the exhibition’s grand opening in mid-May.

“For them to recognize places that were forgotten, that meant a lot,” Zamora said. “ Nobody seems to remember it. I mean, except the people that lived there.”

Ethnic studies faces growing challenges

While the school’s principal, students and former Rocktown residents have embraced the ethnic studies class, Ramirez said she’s also heard criticism.

During Duarte High’s open house, Ramirez said a parent voiced her disagreement with the class and threatened to file a grievance even though her child had yet to enroll at the school.

“ I'm a parent, so I understand, especially if it's something that you're not familiar with and your kids are learning something different from what you learned, it can be scary,” Ramirez said. “My approach is never to impose my viewpoints. It's to provide alternative perspectives.”

Some lawmakers have also criticized school offerings that intersect with race and ethnicity.

In the last five years, 20 states have banned or restricted teaching critical race theory, an academic concept that race is a social construct and that racism is embedded in specific societal structures.

Teacher Casey Ramirez said teaching students to view history from multiple points of view and form their own opinions is a key feature of the ethnic studies class.

(

Courtesy Oscar Ramirez

)

California school districts from Los Alamitos to San Francisco have faced pushback over their ethnic studies curriculum despite passage of the state mandate.

State lawmakers’ decision to withhold money for teacher training and materials has delayed the ethnic studies graduation requirement.

Daniel Diaz, director of the UCLA History-Geography Project, said there was a flood of interest when the ethnic studies mandate was first passed, but now fewer districts are paying for related professional development.

“Which in turn then impacts what happens to our project and … who we're able to support in terms of staffing,” Diaz said.

In June, UCLA laid off one of the educators instrumental in helping Duarte develop its ethnic studies curriculum.

In a statement, John McDonald, director of media relations at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies, said the History-Geography Project has laid off four staff members total after funded projects ended in the last year.

“UCLA Center X is committed to the work and actively seeking new funding for similar efforts,” McDonald said.

What that means for other districts looking for assistance with ethnic studies programs remains to be seen.

Ramirez said her UCLA collaborator was “phenomenal” and continued to support the project even after the contract with the district formally ended.

“ I don't think that this year and this project would've been what it was without having that support,” Ramirez said.

A business center now stands south of the 210 and west of the 605 where part of Rocktown once was. Some of the street names, including Evergreen and Flower, remain the same.

(

Mariana Dale

/

LAist

)

The Rocktown Project’s future

Duarte High School will continue the ethnic studies class.

More former residents have already contacted Ramirez hoping to be interviewed by next year’s students. She also plans to publish the students’ work on a website and a future goal is to memorialize Rocktown with a physical marker in Duarte.

“You need to know whose land you're on and who was there,” said Sylvia Gonzales Youngblood, who was born in Duarte in 1967 and grew up visiting the home her maternal grandfather built in Rocktown.

She said when she was a student there wasn’t an opportunity to learn about her family’s  Ohlone Mission Indian and Mexican heritage and she was discouraged from speaking Spanish.

“Now as I'm older, I realize just how much history and of ourselves we lose,” Youngblood said.

Carter, the rising sophomore, said after taking ethnic studies, she feels more connected to the city she moved to about a year ago.

“It's important that we know this side of history so a community like Rocktown doesn't get lost again,” Carter said. “Every voice should be heard, including Rocktown's.”

Biking on river trails, going on picnics and surfing in the ocean are activities California residents cherish every summer. But headlines about the use of toxic chemicals in flood control channels around Orange County have created anxiety for those looking forward to their favorite activities this summer.

Dozens of environmental activists and Orange County residents packed the Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting this week to urge the county to halt the routine use of toxins they say poison waterways and wash out into the ocean.

But several supervisors said it wasn’t that simple. The chemical prevents overgrowth in flood control channels, and that overgrowth could lead to backups and flooding, affecting neighborhoods and businesses during heavy rains.

Controversy over the chemical use led to an announcement last month by Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley, declaring that chemical usage would be halted for the moment. The issue then came before the board this week for further discussion.

Supervisors decided to study the issue and revisit it in the months ahead, and directed the OC Public Works department to evaluate methods for clearing overgrowth of vegetation that crowd flood channels, and look for alternate methods of doing so.

Brent Linas, founder of the Orange County Creek Team, which has succeeded in bringing the environmental issue to the public’s attention through salty Instagram posts and other social media tactics, blasted what he described as the board’s inaction.

He feels that the board is “deeply dysfunctional” and plans on using the meeting as momentum to spread awareness about the chemicals' negative effects on the environment. “There’s palpable outrage in Orange County right now around this and we fully intend to tap into that,” Linas said.

Foley also plans to reintroduce public noticing requirements at the next meeting June 23. The notices would alert residents to the planned use of any pesticides and herbicides. “Orange County residents deserve transparency to help make informed decisions about where their families recreate,” Foley said in a statement released the after the meeting. “I remain encouraged by the overwhelming public support in exploring nontoxic solutions for our waterways.”

How to watchdog your local government

One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention. Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.

• Read tips on how to get involved.
• The Orange County Board of Supervisors meets on alternating Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. at 400 W. Civic Center Drive, Santa Ana. You can check out the O.C. Board of Supervisors full calendar here.
• Learn how to submit a public comment to the O.C. Board of Supervisors.

A program dedicated to providing low-income California residents with extra money for fruits and vegetables is likely to go under this summer if additional funds are not allocated in this year’s state budget, according to concerned food justice advocates.

The CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program provides CalFresh recipients with up to $60 a month of free produce each month, in addition to their benefits. In May alone, the program disbursed over $5 million and “served 95,520 California households,” said Grecia Marquez-Nieblas, senior manager at food policy nonprofit Fullwell, which has backed the program.

“Overwhelmingly, folks have been telling us that they want it to continue, that it’s made a really positive impact on them,” Marquez-Nieblas said. “Their diabetes is better managed; their high blood pressure is better managed.”

Those people are now at risk of losing access to that support as funds whittle down. The state budget is set to be finalized on June 15, and “as far as we know, there is no continued funding that has been proposed,” Marquez-Nieblas said.

“When this program ends, we’ll have less money to spend, [at] a time when groceries are incredibly more expensive. Gas is more expensive. Everything is more expensive,” she said. “It’s just, unfortunately, a compounding effect. There’s lots of stuff that’s impacting the same people.”

The program is simple to use: When customers purchase food at participating markets, like Arteaga’s Food Center in San José, they just swipe their EBT (electronic benefit transfer) card.

For every purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables with that card, customers receive an instant rebate each month, applied to their card. The rebate money can be spent on any food or goods covered by CalFresh, like meat, eggs and dairy — it is not limited to fruits and vegetables.

Marquez-Nieblas explained that the pilot program has been implemented in three phases — the latest of which received a limited, one-time allocation of $36 million from the state budget. That seems like a large number, “until we realize that there are hundreds of thousands of individuals across the state using the program.”

“It’s been proven many times that CalFresh — and programs like this that support people having more money for food — are incredibly impactful for lifting children out of poverty, for supporting seniors with limited incomes, for anybody,” Marquez-Nieblas said. “Foundationally, these programs are good. They’re good for public health.”

Food policy advocates said they are hoping for $100 million for the program to continue to operate year-round. Instead, it was reappropriated around $4.8 million — the remaining funds from last year’s budget cycle, in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “May Revise” proposal, according to H.D. Palmer, spokesperson for the California Department of Finance.

“The program will operate until funds are fully utilized,” Palmer said in an email to KQED.

The program’s end would come at a particularly stressful time for CalFresh recipients. This month, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, California has begun enforcing new and expanded federal guidelines that require some CalFresh recipients to work 20 hours a week, or an average of 80 hours a month — with a stark reduction in food benefits for those who don’t.

The changes were prompted by the passing of President Donald Trump’s H.R.1 last year.

“Not only does it add in the onerous work requirement — a lot of people who are already receiving CalFresh are working — but now they have this bureaucratic paperwork to provide,” said Kathy Saile, California director of national nonprofit No Kid Hungry. “There’s some real concern that people could lose benefits just because they couldn’t figure out the paperwork.”

H.R. 1’s impact, which also cuts food benefits for some refugees and asylum seekers, is apparent, according to federal data analyzed by the nonpartisan research group Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The center estimated that nationwide, SNAP participation fell by almost 9% — more than 3.5 million people — between H.R.1’s start in July 2025 and February 2026.

Palmer said the state was taking proactive steps to maintain residents’ enrollment in the program.

“This includes leveraging existing data to determine possible exemptions from the new SNAP work requirements, implementing automation, and conducting client outreach,” he said.

He added that the latest budget revision has “a total of $38 million for the CalFood program — which funds food banks for the purchase, storage, and transportation of food grown and/or produced in California.”

In a time of rising bureaucratic barriers implemented by H.R. 1, Marquez-Nieblas said the CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program is part of the state’s food safety net.

“This is not just about backfill,” she said. “It’s not just about responding to the impacts (of H.R. 1), which are incredibly awful. It’s also about setting ourselves up for success in the future, knowing we have to invest proactively.”

Marquez-Nieblas said CalFresh recipients should keep their eyes on the California Department of Social Services website for any possible updates and changes in the future.

This story is a collaboration between the LAist and The LA Local. Agya K. Aning and Alain Stephens are freelance reporters.

Cheyenne Barrett spent the second night of April last year surrounded by loved ones. Among them was her new boyfriend, Zackery Melton. “He was sweet, and he was really funny,” Barrett said. “He had really nice eyes.”

His friends called him Turdle. Turtles are known for their slow, plodding pace. Turdle — with a “D” — had a reputation for quick, athletic strides, which his friends had trouble keeping pace with. He was also known for keeping his word, his loyalty and a seemingly ever-present smile. The Texan had bucked convention his entire life. When he wasn’t couch surfing, he slept in his car. According to his father, Turdle called his lifestyle “living free.”

For years, Barrett and Turdle were just friends. On April 2, 2025, they had officially been a couple for just two days. Barrett had just quit her job at a seafood restaurant on the Venice Boardwalk, so she spent the day celebrating with Turdle and some friends at Westminster Dog Park. A couple of hours after sunset, one of those friends stepped away to talk with her boyfriend, who had come looking for her, in a nearby parking lot. When the couple started arguing, Turdle left to check on his friend. Then a gunshot rang out, and everybody split.

After escaping the park, Barrett canvassed the neighborhood in search of Turdle. Eventually, she heard a woman screaming her name and followed the cries back to the park, where Turdle lay dead from a gunshot wound above his right eye. There, on the parking lot pavement, she held his body and begged him not to go. “That was the last thing I said, that we all love you,” Barrett said.

Although unhoused, Turdle was wealthy in ways that many young men are desperate for. He was part of a vibrant community. His platoon of friends saw him as a leader and a fount of motivation and support. He also had a daughter from a previous relationship, and another ex was pregnant with his son, who was born about seven weeks after his murder.

At the time of his death, Turdle, 28, was the 16th unhoused person to be shot and killed in the city of Los Angeles last year, according to records from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner. Before the year’s end, the department reported 11 more.

While living on the streets presents many dangers, an investigation by LAist and The LA Local found gun violence is a growing threat to the city’s unhoused residents. Since 2015, 278 unhoused people in L.A. have been shot and killed, according to an analysis of records from the Los Angeles Police Department. The number of shooting deaths of unhoused people remains high even as homicides among the city’s general population declined last year.

No single factor fully explains this persistent violence. Our reporting points to a combination of more people living on the streets, illegal gun possession, gang activity and some Angelenos’ deep hatred of unhoused people. Turdle’s death ties to some of these trends. In other ways, it’s an outlier.

Numerous unhoused Angelenos told LAist and The LA Local that trying to get justice for matters big or small often means being ignored or treated like a criminal. In Turdle’s case, his killer, Tyrone Jones, 46, was tracked down by a team of detectives and convicted of murder in May.

Turdle’s friends and family say his life meant a great deal to many, including the Venice Beach community, where he and his dog were well known. His death generated significant public outcry, a level of attention not often seen in cases involving unhoused murder victims in Los Angeles.

'The streets called him'

Turdle was born May 14, 1996, and spent his first year of life in Junction, a tiny town in the middle of Texas. Infants typically start walking anywhere between 9 and 18 months of age, but Karen Webb, Turdle’s mother, said it took him only 7. “He was born, and his feet were already on the ground,” she said.

Karen Webb holds her son Zackery “Turdle” Melton.

(

Courtesy Melton's family

/

The LA Local

)

Webb remarried while her son was still young, and the family moved to Florida and later to Indiana. She and her husband filled their home with music, and her headstrong son taught himself to play the harmonica and guitar. Still a Texan through and through, Turdle loved cowboys. “He would always carry around this Woody doll, and he would always wear cowboy boots and a cowboy hat,” said his younger half-sister, Abby Webb.

Turdle could be excitable and hot-headed, so his mom enrolled him in kickboxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes in an attempt to center him. He thrived. His protective nature — and fierce hatred of bullies — would see him using these skills to defend those he loved on many occasions.

Around the time he became an adult, the family decided to leave Indiana. Turdle preferred to move back to Texas with his biological father, Mark Melton. But it only took a few weeks of being in the Lone Star State before he set his sights on California. “He pretty much told me that if I didn't fly him out there or get him there, he'll walk,” Webb said. “And you know what? I knew he would.” So she bought him a ticket.

Soon after turning 18, Turdle followed in the great American tradition of venturing out West without a connection or real plan, just vague hopes of capitalizing on his talents as a musician and fighter. “Dreams. That's what was there — dreams. Nothing tangible,” Webb said.

Turdle moved to California with hopes of capitalizing on his talents as a musician and fighter.

(

Courtesy Melton's family

/

The LA Local

)

Turdle’s first stop was San Francisco, which he took to immediately, his mother said. “It was just adventure for him,” she said, adding her son had no problem sleeping in the streets. Webb said this lifestyle would always be a point of contention between the two of them. “The streets called him. They just did,” she said. “Even when he was young, I would find him sleeping in a park.”

Early on his journey, he made his way to Venice, where he met Nehemiah McGee, then an unhoused teen, while skateboarding. By his own admission, McGee, now 26, was a bit naive when they became friends. But Turdle protected him. “He gave me sound advice when I didn't have nobody,” McGee said. With the addition of one other friend, they made up the original members of a group of unhoused friends that would swell to about two dozen — The Dirty Kids, as they called themselves, also known as The Abbott Kinney Crew. Its members came from all over: McGee grew up in Seattle, while others hailed from places like Virginia, Indiana, Colorado, Louisiana and Tennessee.

Nehemiah McGee and Turdle formed a close group of friends who called themselves The Dirty Kids.

(

Agya K. Aning

/

LAist and The LA Local

)

The number of people living on the streets of Los Angeles grew alongside The Dirty Kids. From 2015 to 2025, L.A.’s unsheltered homeless population rose from 18,000 to 27,000. While just 1% of Americans live in the city of Los Angeles, it's home to 10% of the country’s unsheltered homeless population.

The Dirty Kids slept wherever they could, including inside of cars, on the beach, and beneath the trees in Westminster Dog Park. Each morning, the first person up would rouse the others with the booming imperative to “Wake up and rage!” It was the group’s way of saying, “Get up and do something,” McGee said. That could mean skateboarding, performing music, looking for jobs or housing, playing Fortnite and “flying signs” — standing on a corner with a written message, hoping that a stranger would lend a buck or two. They also cared for their dogs, which nearly everyone had.

Turdle met his companion, a Siberian husky named Max, on Venice Beach. His owner at the time was an older unhoused man who could no longer care for him, Webb said. The man asked Turdle if he wanted a dog, and that was that. “When Zackery had no one — when he slept in the streets and the gutters — he slept with Max,” his mother said.

Turdle found Max, a Siberian husky, on Venice Beach. “When Zackery had no one — when he slept in the streets and the gutters — he slept with Max,” Turdle's mother said.

(

Courtesy Melton's family

)

McGee said people in Venice had mixed feelings about The Dirty Kids. “They hated us because we're trashy looking, we're poor, we're homeless, we're sleeping on the streets,” he said.

At the same time, McGee said the crew looked out for the community. “We make sure people weren't messing around. If other homeless people were trying to break into buildings, we were trying to stop them,” he said.

Still, McGee, Turdle and the rest of The Abbot Kinney Crew were often ticketed for sitting on the ground, sleeping on sidewalks and asking for money or food. “Despite all of that, we still had a family. We still loved each other, so nothing that they did could ever separate us,” McGee said. Whether the average resident liked it or not, The Dirty Kids were part of the Venice community.

During his second year in California, Turdle met a woman at Westminster Dog Park, and they moved in together. His mother taught him to love stargazing, so when the couple had a daughter in 2018, they named her Lyra, after the constellation. After five years, the pair split and Turdle found himself outside once again. For a while, he saw Lyra frequently. But when her mother moved to Arizona, Turdle reeled from the inability to see his child, his family said.

“He wanted to do something for [Lyra], but that was one thing that always ate at him because he didn't have anything,” said his father. “It ate him that he didn't get along with his ex.”

Turdle with his daughter, Lyra, and his ex who would give birth to a son, Gunner, after Turdle's death.

(

Courtesy Melton's family

/

The LA Local

)

As Turdle nursed his heartache, he also wrestled with an addiction to fentanyl, which he started using after an injury in 2021 or 2022, his mother said. The drug — a synthetic opioid 100 times more potent than morphine — has become a major problem for those living on the city’s streets. In 2019, 18% of fatal overdoses among the county’s unhoused population involved fentanyl. In 2023, that share peaked at 70%, but it has since fallen. The only other drugs involved in more deaths of this kind were methamphetamines.

In 2024, Turdle met another woman, who Webb said helped him get clean. They lived together in West Covina. She also became pregnant with a boy, Gunner. The couple split before their son was born, and Turdle returned to the streets.

After more than a decade in Los Angeles, Webb said her son had made plans to move back in with her. She kept in touch with his exes, she said, and was going to make sure Turdle was a part of his children’s lives. “I'd finally gotten him to a place where he was gonna come home, and he just wanted to go across the country with Max one more time,” she said. “So, Saturday, he was leaving to come home, and he died Wednesday.”

April 2, 2025

Cheyenne Barrett first met Turdle in 2018 on the Venice Boardwalk, when he stopped by The Wee Chippy, a popular seafood stand where she worked. “We had the cheapest fries on the boardwalk. It was three or $4, and you could get a big bucket,” she said. “Feed everybody.” Barrett became friends with Turdle and his crew, hanging out late nights at her place and watching movies.

Early last year, she started hanging out with Turdle every day after she clocked out, getting burgers and beers or decompressing at the pier. Although Barrett had just turned 30, she said spending time with Turdle made her feel like a teenager again. In late March, Turdle called Barrett his girlfriend in front of her cousin. She didn’t argue. Two days later, on April 2, 2025, they were enjoying drinks with two other friends inside a tent at Westminster Dog Park.

According to pre-trial witness testimonies, Tyrone Jones came by the tent looking for his girlfriend, who was enjoying the day with Barrett and Turdle. Jones and his girlfriend went to the parking lot, a few steps away from the tent, and started arguing. Turdle went out to take a look. “Zackery is like our big brother outside,” one witness later testified, “so he would go check up on situations.” In her testimony, Barrett recalled hearing her friend scream, prompting her to start packing up the tent. That’s when she heard a gunshot.

Barrett ran from the park, and a few minutes laterm she heard a second gunshot. She hurriedly searched for Turdle at a liquor store and other spots nearby, asking people she ran into whether they had seen him. Then, Barrett heard her friend screaming out her name. She followed her friend’s voice back to the parking lot of the dog park, where she found Turdle's body.

Mark Prarat, 59, had been living in his 2002 Ford E-150 in the Westminster parking lot for more than a year when he heard a gunshot. Even though no one told him who had been killed, Prarat said he knew it was Turdle. After the scene was cleaned up, he left his van and walked in circles around the blood-stained pavement. “What I kind of focused on was just chanting what's called the Mahā-mantra, the Hare Krishna mantra,” Prarat said, which is typically intended to cleanse the heart of negativity. “I don't know why. I've never done it before, but I did it.”

He’d known Turdle for just two months, but then and there, he started building a makeshift memorial, first by plucking flowers nearby and later with some he bought. Others who knew Turdle soon adorned it with a medley of ornaments, including candles, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle doll and a Barbie skateboard deck. Prarat took down the memorial in mid-July, after 101 days, he said. All the items were then divvied up among Turdle’s loved ones.

The search for Turdle's killer

Immediately after her son’s death, Webb set to work on multiple fronts. She spent six months tracking down his dog Max, she said, who is now in his “forever home” with a dear friend of Turdle’s.

Meanwhile, she tried to correct the narrative of her son and his death. “I got angry,” Webb said. “That was not going to be my son's legacy and story, that he was just some homeless man that nobody cared about that died at a dog park.” So she reached out to reporters, including Michelle McPhee at Los Angeles Magazine, to share pictures and personal details about Turdle. She also took to social media, writing comments under local news stories to tell the world about her son.

Finally, Webb stayed in touch with LAPD Det. Jared Timmons, who worked on the search for her son’s killer.

The team of detectives obtained security footage showing a silver or gray Maserati, which was registered to Jones, racing away shortly after the shooting. The LAPD later traced it back to Jones' home, only a block away from the park. No one was there, but according to court records, officers found ammunition matching the 9mm shell casing retrieved from the scene of the shooting.

Jones’ ex-girlfriend testified that he held her against her will for weeks after Turdle was killed. During that time, she told the court Jones abused her and forced her to stay in a walk-in closet. Detectives received warrants allowing them to track Jones’ phone lines and internet activity. On May 9, 2025, more than five weeks after Turdle was killed, they arrested him at his cousin’s apartment in Florence.

Last month, Jones was convicted on eight charges, including injuring a spouse, kidnapping, false imprisonment by violence and first-degree murder. According to court records, he had previous felony convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and human trafficking and was not allowed to own a gun.

Multiple LAPD homicide detectives who have worked cases involving unhoused victims told LAist and The LA Local that illegal gun possession is common. According to the department’s annual crime report, the LAPD seized more than 80,000 firearms from 2015 through 2025. Last year, it recovered 8,650, over a thousand more than in 2024.

Jones is held at North County Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Castaic. He will be sentenced June 18.

Erika Herod, Mason "Prince" Lum, Nehemiah McGee, and Cheyenne Barrett catch up at Westminster Dog Park on Jan. 11, 2026. Their friend Zackery "Turdle" Melton was shot and killed there nine months prior while saving another friend's life.

(

Agya K. Aning

/

LAist and The LA Local

)

Remembering Turdle

On a warm day in January, a few of those who knew Turdle gathered in Westminster Dog Park. McGee, who arrived first, said their numbers would have likely been greater, but The Dirty Kids were a thing of the past. Some were no longer on the streets, thankfully. Others were in prison or had died from drugs or violence.

McGee, who is housed these days, said he has battled suicidal thoughts since the age of 12. Remembering his friend Turdle helps keep those thoughts at bay. “I think of him when I wake up,” he said, “just a constant reminder in my ear every day that I still want to be something.” He’s also reminded of Turdle by his guitar, which found its way to him. McGee said it’s the third one he’s received from a friend who had died, and he’s not sure how to feel about that.

He recounted his friendship with Turdle for about an hour, when another former Dirty Kid showed up. Mason Lum, who goes by Prince, reminisced for about 15 minutes before he was overcome with emotion. Westminster Dog Park was previously beloved by their crew, where they held many birthdays and played with their legion of dogs. Now, a pall hung over it.

Barrett arrived next. She had a hard time talking about Turdle, but thought it was important to tell his story. Barrett lamented not having more time with him. The greater loss, she said, was for his children, Lyra and Gunner. “It's not fair,” she said, “because they don't get any time, you know, the babies.”

Zackery Alan Melton loved Texas, and that is where he was laid to rest last year in April — in the town of Llano, next to his paternal grandfather. Since then, hundreds of people have reached out to his family, even some who weren’t on good terms with him. “You find out how well you raised your kid from other people,” his father said.

“I have so much pride mixed with devastation,” his mother said, “and it's a very odd place to be.”