Skipp Townsend, 62, the executive director of the South Los Angeles gang intervention nonprofit 2nd Call, was taken into custody Wednesday at about 10:30 a.m. by detectives from the LAPD's Robbery Homicide Division outside the group's office at La Brea Avenue and Obama Boulevard.

Four others were arrested with him: Lenita Sinna Dee Lewis, 28; Shamond "Lil AD" Bennett, 49; Nichole Aaliyah Smith, 23; and Jeremiah Abdelhameed, 25. Townsend and Bennett are being held in lieu of $2-million bail, while the others' bail was set at $50,000.

The Los Angeles Times reports that LAPD officials would not detail whom the suspects are alleged to have conspired to murder, and Townsend has not been charged.

A district attorney's office spokesman said the case is under review for a charging decision, and law enforcement sources told The Times that search warrants were served before the arrests. Activist Najee Ali said police seized computers from 2nd Call's offices.

Townsend is a towering figure in the intervention world — a former Rollin' 20s Blood who spent more than two decades mediating gang disputes and building one of the city's largest violence-prevention programs, earning a place on the Los Angeles Times' 2024 list of most influential Angelenos.

UCLA gang expert Jorja Leap told The Times that many colleagues were stunned, saying that until she understands the case in detail it "in no way bears any resemblance to the man I know" and adding, "Show me the receipts."

She contrasted the reaction with the federal murder-conspiracy case against fellow interventionist Eugene "Big U" Henley, where disbelief was far scarcer.

Fernando Rejón of the Urban Peace Institute called the allegations "unbelievable," while noting the tightrope interventionists walk to stay effective. Some observers argued the arrest fits a decades-long pattern of harassment of interventionists with criminal pasts.

The arrests follow the Aug. 6 fatal shooting of Reginald Foreman, 51, who was gunned down while working with a 2nd Call team on weed abatement near 59th Place and Crenshaw Boulevard in Hyde Park.

Witnesses described a masked youth opening fire as Foreman and Bennett ran, with some saying the gunman stood over Foreman and fired into his chest at point-blank range. Police told the family they expected a break in the case, but no arrests have been announced.

The Times reports that a separate prior case against Bennett — charges of resisting arrest and battery from a 2025 vigil confrontation — collapsed last month after a judge threw it out on speedy-trial grounds.

Earlier, on the Fourth of July, another 2nd Call employee, Eric Washington, 37, was shot and killed in Compton while breaking up an altercation, and a $70,000 reward now stands for information.

The case lands at a precarious moment for Los Angeles violence prevention.

According to the Los Angeles Times, city records show 2nd Call held contracts of $695,000 and up to $715,000 through Mayor Karen Bass' Office of Community Safety, plus work with the $100-million Destination Crenshaw project, and Townsend had recently posted from the set of FX's "The Drop: A Snowfall Saga," where he served as an advisor.

Incoming mayor Nithya Raman, who defeated Bass, plans to bolster the Office of Community Safety, and Rejón said he hopes the arrest does not undermine a broader anti-gang effort that officials credit with driving down violent crime.

Prosecutors must now decide whether to charge Townsend, while Bennett's defense record — a thrown-out speedy-trial case — may foreshadow the legal fight ahead.