Fugitive in December Slaying Is Arrested

Question: What do you do if you’re wanted in a slaying and think the police know your license plate number?

Answer: Anything but go to the Department of Motor Vehicles try to get new plates.

This was the mistake Kevin Pouncil apparently made Tuesday, the day he was arrested on suspicion of murder, police said.

Pouncil, 29, who was driving the same car seen at a noontime slaying on Dec. 30, tried to get new plates at the state office Tuesday, said Det. Rick Swanston of the Los Angeles Police Department.

But when the DMV clerk in the Lancaster office entered Pouncil’s name into the state computer system, she was alerted that he was a wanted man, Swanston said.

The clerk casually detained Pouncil until local sheriff’s deputies arrived and arrested him. LAPD homicide detectives later transferred him to a city jail where he remained Wednesday, held without bail.

Police allege that Pouncil, and another man who remains at large, fatally shot 33-year-old Rommell Daniels at the dead-end of the 6500 block of Etiwanda Avenue in Reseda. Witnesses saw the shooting and the white Mercedes-Benz coupe, police said.

Police allege the men are drug dealers and the killing was drug-related. “Somebody obviously shorted somebody with cash or dope,” said Swanston.

Pouncil is expected to be arraigned today in Van Nuys Municipal Court.