Close Friends, Family Hold Emotional Vigil for Reginald Foreman, 2nd Call Worker Gunned Down While Cleaning Up Crenshaw Blvd.

The wind worked hard last Tuesday night, but the man in a black hoodie and sunglasses worked harder. As quickly as the breeze snuffed out the candles set up to honor Reginald Foreman, he was there with a stick to relight them. “Got to,” he said, picking up another candle.

He and Foreman, known to many as “Baby Ant” or “B.A.,” had been friends since childhood, he said. As a matter of fact, the passenger seat in his car was still reclined from when the two were last driving together. He’d left it that way, expecting he’d see his friend again soon, he said. They’d even talked twice on the morning of August 6. Then, just hours later, came the devastating news: Foreman had been shot and killed just south of 59th on Crenshaw, while out doing cleanup work for Destination Crenshaw with other team members from 2nd Call – an organization dedicated to violence reduction and the personal development of those whose early life trajectories were shaped by disinvestment, overpolicing, and the carceral system.

Now, five days later, at the vigil for Foreman’s close friends and family, he was still feeling adrift. “I won’t move the seat [back],” he declared, his voice breaking. “I’ve been f*cked up for days! That was my bro. This sh*t affected everybody.”

The outpouring of grief on social media, including from Destination Crenshaw and 8th District Councilmember and City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, speaks to just how many lives the 51-year-old Foreman had touched. From those he came up with in the streets, to the kids he coached, to the friends and family he left behind, to the mentees he inspired, he was widely beloved. The fact that he’d been gunned down while actively working to improve his community compounded their sorrow.

At the vigil, mourners spoke to the qualities that made the father of three so endearing: his loyalty, his sense of humor, his faith, his capacity for growth, his love for his family and for working with kids, and his dedication to safer streets for his community.

“We did a lot of stuff that wasn’t right, but over the years we got our acts together. We found the right path to get on and we started following it,” said a friend who had met Foreman around the age of twelve.

The two hadn’t seen each other in a few years, but had run into each other the day Foreman was killed. “I was actually able to talk to him, hug him, have a few laughs about some old times. That meant a lot to me,” he said. “I guess it was the Most High’s way of giving me a chance to say good-bye to my friend.”

Another friend who knew him as “Dinky” before he became “Baby Ant” and then “B.A.” also spoke to how far Foreman had come. “For his family…” he said in earnest, “he was on the right path. Y’all can take solace in that. May god rest his soul.”

Foreman had only been working with 2nd Call for two months at the time of his death. But 2nd Call Executive Director and co-founder Skipp Townsend made clear Foreman had been moving in that direction for many years.

He’d first come across “B.A.” over two decades ago, “when he had on blue shoes and I had on red ones,” Townsend said. He met “the image” of Foreman first – the “arrogance” and the “ego” and everything that went along with his persona in the streets. But when their families blended unexpectedly, the two men found a way to put aside the politics for the greater good.

In 2019, Foreman had been among a group of key figures that Townsend hosted in an effort to encourage a ceasefire between Inglewood Family and the Rollin 100s. Foreman’s presence had been essential to its success. “For about three years we had peace between Inglewood and the Western Avenues,” Townsend said. “And B.A. was a major part of that.”

So when Foreman approached him looking for work two months ago, Townsend didn’t hesitate. As Foreman embraced the responsibilities that came with the job and with what 2nd Call stood for, Townsend got a deeper understanding of who Foreman was as a man, a coach, and a father.

“I was honored and grateful to God that I met ‘B.A.’ back in 2000-2001,” he said. “But I’m honored and humbled that I got to know Reginald for the last two months of his life.”

None of that made the loss easier to bear.

Just last month, another beloved community advocate and former 2nd Call associate, Eric Washington, had been shot and killed at a party, reportedly while trying to de-escalate a conflict. But this was the first time 2nd Call had lost someone to violence on the job like this. And it had happened in front of Foreman’s friends and coworkers.

The toll it had taken on Shamond “Lil AD” Bennett was evident. He and another coworker had courageously stayed by Foreman’s side as they waited in desperation for paramedics to arrive. Unable to sleep in the days that followed, Bennett found himself overwhelmed with emotion at the vigil and struggling to find the words to express any of it. As his voice faltered, the mourners lent him theirs. “You was there for him,” they said gently. “You were there for him.”

Bennett seemed to acknowledge their gratitude with a nod but also voiced regret that he hadn’t been able to do more.

Like Foreman, he had first moved into peace work after Nipsey Hussle’s death in 2019, when he and LaTanya Ward invited rival gangs to come together for historic peace talks. And like Foreman, his commitment had only deepened in the intervening years. It wasn’t always the easiest path to tread; Bennett had even faced pushback from LAPD (who assaulted him in July of 2025 as he attempted to keep them from aggressing on mourners at a vigil for another fallen friend) and the District Attorney (who slapped him with a gang enhancement/felony strike for having tried to keep the peace that night).

Watching the life drain from the man he’d known since he was twelve years old had made him feel “ready to go stupid,” Bennett confessed. But it had also seemed to strengthen his resolve to stay the course. He’d arrived at the vigil in his neon vest and immediately gone into peacekeeper mode, safeguarding other mourners even as he struggled to process his own grief.

“I’m gonna miss the f*ck out of you,” Bennett said, eyes fixed on the flickering candles. “There ain’t gonna ever be another B.A. like you, homie. Gonna miss that smile, cuz. Gonna miss that laugh. Gonna miss you telling me, ‘Calm down, little bro…’, ‘F*ckin let it go, little bro…,’ ‘Don’t let them trip you out.'”

Foreman’s sister Amiee Johnson (above center, in the gray dress), thanked everyone for their love and condolences. She had only known her brother Reggie as a family man, but recognized his importance to his second “family,” reassuring them that “he loved y’all.” She also thanked Foreman’s brother Chris for organizing the small gathering so those day-ones could say goodbye.

It had been hard for her to come out for the vigil, she admitted, but she knew how much her brother meant to everyone. It was also an opportunity for her to give them a fuller picture of who her brother was.

“My father lost a son, my nieces and my nephews lost a father, and we lost a brother,” she said through tears. He’d made all of them proud by finding Jesus, seeking forgiveness for past transgressions, and finding ways to make peace.

What happened to her brother was the work of a coward, Johnson said. “He didn’t deserve to die in that ditch. He was a good man.”

“We are lost. And I know y’all are lost,” she said, choking up. “It hurts.”