i m craig melvin and i m natalie morales. and this is dateline. the neighborhood ha everything a burglary wanted t find, private yards, wealthy homes and she had the worst o possible luck, in that h picked her yes i d like to report an attempted break in - a mother, home alone. cops raced to her front door a she walks into an ambush in he backyard how does somebody die in matter of seconds with officer around her home? it was surreal, it wa awful. your first thought of tha time it s a burglary gone wrong. but the burglar caugh red-handed starts pointing fingers. this is a guy who aspire to be a hit man - she was a sitting target. does it now mean that you charge them all with effort now the detectives lay a trap we triedd to play cat and mouse. we re getting reall paranoid about being - one are you wired will they catch their prey? you hold your breath, the world s gonna stop this. you never think it s goin to be you. oh no
at the very moment when at least three policemen were jus outside the front door and jus over the backyard wall and mor than 30 feet away. we had to be told a few times just to get it in ou heads, what happened what happened here? in broad daylight and under th very noses of the cops was murder. no long beach california, town that might have bee cheated a little by the city fire department. a lot of people assume it s like la but it s not it different, it has its ow identity different culturally? i think so. i think long beach is sort o its own beast. sure. it s a little more workin class. yes, and it s one of thos 50 suburbs in search of a city that everybody calls l. a. but long beach is a brawny cit unto itself, half 1 millio people, 52 square miles, a bus airport, a big university, a oceanfront, along beach. and its share of wealth an poverty. that of course - crime. a lot of scope for a person who no shortage of work, fo covering crime tracy mansour it i