Thomas Dewey, 56

Died April 2, 2007 at 5:45 p.m.

Thomas Dewey, 56, a white man, was shot in a double homicide at 2076 McPherson Ave. in El Sereno, and died at 5:40 p.m. Monday, April 2.

Dewey and his longtime buddy, Robert Trujillo Jr., 51, a Latino man, were sitting in a parked car drinking beer in a neighborhood they frequented, police said.

A neighbor living in the house across from where they were parked watched them through a window for a time, then got a gun, hid it in his clothing and walked outside. He went up to the car, pulled out the gun, and shot both Trujillo and Dewey dead. Then the neighbor went back inside his house.

What followed was an extraordinary scene, described by Hollenbeck Det. Carey Ricard: Officers were guarding the victims' bodies, and detectives were in the midst of their investigation, when the same neighbor abruptly emerged from his house again, murder weapon in hand. His finger was on the trigger of the gun.

A dozen officers reacted swiftly, pointing shotguns at the man from every direction, but nobody fired. Officers managed to take the man, 41-year-old Douglas Paul Perez, into custody.
Only after he was detained did investigators determine that he was their murder suspect, and that the gun in his hand was the murder weapon. Perez has been charged in the double homicide. Investigators said he may have convinced himself that the victims, both of whom had criminal histories, were some threat, Ricard said.