Courtesy
Police say Ashton Price, who died from a gunshot wound to the chest, was an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire during a shootout at the packed two-story house party, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2020. (Facebook Image Courtesy of Simone Williams)
Friday, Aug. 7, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Exhausted from working both her call center and warehouse jobs, Simone Williams was sound asleep early Saturday morning.
Her daughter called and called until Williams eventually picked up the phone: “Ashton has been shot, and he’s in Las Vegas,” her daughter said.
Adrenaline overpowered tiredness, and Williams, 44, composed herself, got in her car and began the nearly three-hour drive from her home in Victorville, Calif.
“If he’s not calling me himself,” Williams wondered, “then it must’ve been serious. But shot does not mean dead.”
Her daughter, worried about her mother’s well-being on the interstate, intentionally concealed the excruciating truth — Ashton Price, 23, was killed.
Price was one of two men shot at about 3:15 a.m. Saturday in a house illegally rented for a party at 5770 Ruby Creek Drive.
He died from a gunshot wound to the chest, an innocent bystander “caught in the crossfire” during a shootout at the packed two-story home, Metro Police said. The other shooting victim, who self-transported to a hospital, has been discharged.
No arrests or possible motive or suspect descriptions have been revealed.
With a little over an hour left in her drive, Williams grew impatient. “Why am I not getting any information? This doesn’t make sense, it’s like you’re talking in code,” Williams said she told her daughter.
“It finally dawned on me,” Williams said, noting she pressured her daughter, who she was sure was lying: “Is my son dead?”
The voice on the other side of the phone broke down hysterically. Williams had to pull over because she was hyperventilating.
But then she called her pastor and continued onward, thinking, “I gotta collect myself, because I gotta get to my baby, I gotta find out where he is,” she said. “I gotta get to him.”
About seven hours after the shooting, Williams pulled into the crime scene, a house tucked in a neighborhood near Sahara Avenue and Sloan Lane. Investigators remained at the scene, but her son’s body was gone, she said.
Her mind has wandered ever since.
Conflicting scenarios invade her thoughts. In some, she imagines bullets piercing his chest, his body contorting with each impact, she said, describing it as a movie scene.
But then there are the happy memories that overshadow the grim imaginary scenes. Like when he was an inquisitive little boy who adored bugs, birds and reptiles. And how she had to keep an eye on him when they were out, because he would stop with no notice to take a look at tiny creatures.
His teachers would complain that he would lose himself looking out windows, trying to spot birds.
He grew up playing football, and dreamed of becoming a pro. The wide receiver played at Santa Monica College and later transferred to Texas College.
Knowing that football might not pan out, he took to studying business. He became interested in finance and the stock market. Williams knew that her son, whom she often saw as a young boy, was growing up. And although she was surprised her “little scientist” hadn’t pursued a career in nature, she was nonetheless proud of him, and regularly let him know that.
Williams spoke about Price’s 3.8 grade-point average, and how everything he set out to do he accomplished, in education or on the football field.
When he would say, “Mom, I’m going to make it, get us out of here,” she was sure of it.
The pandemic closed the dorm rooms at his school earlier this year, sending him back to California. Williams was working to find him a place in Tyler, Texas, because he wanted to be one of the first students and players there when officials allowed it.
Williams finds solace in the fact that she left nothing unsaid, and that her son didn’t die causing trouble. He was just “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said.
Williams didn’t know Price was in Las Vegas — it was his first visit — but understands that young people want to have fun.
Since Price was an adult, she reasons, he should have been able to do what he pleased without her blessing. And she was comfortable with that notion because her “protective mom” personality might have stunted his growth, she said.
Still, they were close, she said. He was not ashamed to hold her hand, hug her and kiss her in public, Williams said. She last saw him six days before his death, when he picked up his other sister to pamper the girl for her 16th birthday.
His cousin, Eric Williams Jr., 22, knew about the party and almost attended, but work kept him in Los Angeles, he said in a phone interview. The cousins were separated for seven years but reconnected about three years ago.
“Ever since then, we tried to hangout as much as we (could),” Eric Williams said.
“It felt good, the fact that I was able to see him again. ... He was one of my favorite cousins to hangout with,” said Williams, adding that the loss has been devastating. He laments that their growing bond has been stripped away.
“It was so hard to believe that, you know, his life was taken away at that very moment,” he said.
Simone Williams said she and her surviving four children haven’t yet been hit by the full magnitude of their son and brother’s death: the children are staying strong for their mom, and Williams for them.
She hopes to send her son off the way he deserves in two weeks, though it’ll be challenging due to COVID-19 funeral restrictions.
She says she harbors hate neither for his killer nor anyone else, but she wants to see that person face the criminal justice system, because someone like that shouldn’t be out in the streets.
Williams finds solace in the stories about her son told to her by well-wishers, his baby photos, and his caring and humorous personality.
Standing at 6 feet, 5 inches, Price towered over his mom. So, he would tenderly and affectionately pat her on top of the head, telling her, “Oh mom, you’re short.”
It’s those memories she wants to keep.
“No matter what happens, I will never have another Ashton,” she said in a resilient tone. “There’s only one of him in a lifetime.”
