Willie D’Angelo Love, a 23-year-old Black/African American man, was fatally shot in the early morning hours of June 5, 2022, outside the Lounge Soho nightclub in Mesa, Arizona. Police were called to the club, near Southern Avenue and Alma School Road, after reports of gunfire in the parking lot shortly after 2 a.m. Arriving officers found two men lying in the lot with obvious gunshot wounds; both were pronounced dead at the scene.
The victims were later identified as Love, who lived in Maricopa, and 25-year-old Curtis Eugene West Jr. of Phoenix. Two additional victims with gunshot wounds were located nearby; their injuries were described as non-life-threatening, and they were taken to a hospital for treatment.
Investigators determined that the shooting took place in the nightclub’s parking area, where multiple people had gathered as the club let out. Officers spoke with several witnesses, but early reports indicated that it was not yet clear what led up to the gunfire or whether those involved knew each other before the confrontation. Initial news coverage noted that no detailed motive had been released and that detectives were still piecing together the events that preceded the shots. Public crime databases and memorial pages later recorded Love as one of two people killed in what was classified as a mass shooting that night in Mesa.
As officers arrived at the scene, they saw a silver passenger car speeding away from the area and initiated a pursuit. The vehicle was stopped a short distance from the nightclub, and three occupants were detained. Officers did not initially find a weapon inside the car, but when they retraced the route of the pursuit, they located a discarded firearm along the roadway near Alma School Road. According to police statements reported in local media, three people from the car were taken into custody; one was released shortly afterward, while two were arrested on charges that were not directly related to the nightclub homicide itself.
Publicly available law-enforcement and media records do not identify the detained individuals by name or specify any homicide charges tied directly to Love’s killing. A national gun-violence database lists at least one adult male “subject-suspect” as having been arrested in connection with the incident, but without further detail on the ultimate disposition of those arrests. In a 2023 article reviewing homicide investigations from the previous year, the Mesa Police Department still listed the shooting deaths of Love and West at the address of the nightclub among a small number of unsolved cases, emphasizing that detectives continued to investigate and asking anyone with information to contact the department or Silent Witness.
