Newport Beach Mayor Gives Heated Response to Murder At Upscale Mall

Mayor Will O’Neill delivered strong remarks to the media as he discussed the violent incident at Fashion Island Mall which left one person dead. 

Shoppers at the upscale Newport Beach Fashion Island Mall, were witness to a brutal murder last week after suspects opened fire then ran over 68-year-old Patricia McKay, a tourist visiting from New Zealand.

Newport Beach Police say the incident began when a group of adult males robbed the victim and her husband before jumping in a white car and running over the victim then leading police on a high-speed chase across jurisdictions. Officers pursued the vehicle into Los Angeles County where two suspects exited the car. The driver continued on, hitting speeds of 110 mph on the 105 freeway.  

One of the suspects, 26 year old Leroy McCray of Compton, had a criminal history including the 2022 robbery of a tourist at gunpoint in Santa Monica. 

As he was arrested one of the suspects even asked reporters if they were putting him on the news. 

Newport Beach Mayor Will O’Neil and Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer did not hold back in their response to the violent incident.

“To hell with these guys,” he said. “They came into our city, knowing that they were going to commit crime, and a woman is dead today because of it.”

Spitzer criticized Governor Gavin Newsom’s soft on crime approach as contributing to the tragedy.

[Newsom is] too busy running for President to be a problem-solving Governor for California,” Spitzer said. [His] priority is mass decarceration and making sure no one is held accountable for their actions. As a result, we are seeing rising crime.”

"These are thugs and every community is now dealing with this," O'Neill added. "We have to do better as a society because we cannot tolerate this."