Seventeen-year-old Chyler Paton, a Black/African American male, was shot and killed on the night of June 18, 2025, outside a home in the 23000 block of Huber Avenue in Torrance, California. Police received shots-fired calls just before 9 p.m.; when officers arrived they found 17-year-old Chyler Paton in the driveway with a gunshot wound, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. The Los Angeles County medical examiner classified the death as a homicide caused by a gunshot wound to the head.
He had just graduated from Culver City High School, where he was a multi-sport athlete, and he planned to attend California State University, Dominguez Hills, to study criminal justice.
Accounts from family and news reports indicate that 17-year-old Chyler Paton was at the house only to pick up a sibling from an end-of-year pool party when gunfire erupted. He was standing in or near the home’s driveway when he was struck. Reporting in the immediate aftermath described spent shell casings at the scene and a large gathering tied to a rented house for a pool party, details that underscored how quickly the evening turned chaotic. Some listings and memorial pages subsequently referred to the victim as “Chyler Payton,” but law-enforcement and county-coroner references identified him as 17-year-old Chyler Paton.
As weeks passed, investigators with the Torrance Police Department continued the homicide investigation, asking witnesses to come forward. By mid-August 2025, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of whoever killed 17-year-old Chyler Paton, a step that followed the family’s public plea for help. Even with the reward in place, police had not publicly identified a suspect, and there were no announced arrests connected to the killing of 17-year-old Chyler Paton.
The portrait that emerged of 17-year-old Chyler Paton in the days after his death was of a recent graduate who loved sports and had mapped out the next chapter of his life, only for it to be cut short in a residential driveway. Community vigils and calls for accountability followed, and officials renewed appeals for tips to Torrance police as the case remained open.
