Trouble Shadowed Youth Arrested in S.D. Slaying : Crime: Raised in a crime-ridden neighborhood, 10-year-old accused in killing is considered hardened.
SAN DIEGO — Neighbors, counselors and, most of all, his mother knew only too well that the 10-year-old boy was destined for trouble in a big way.
The boy with the bright green eyes, ruffled hair and narrow smile had known only poverty and violence in his short life. Despite the violence that surrounded him, pictures of his smiling face offered no hint that he would become an accused killer before his teen-age years, arrested in the death of a 25-year-old mother of three who died Sunday evening when a bullet tore through the wall of the trailer where she lived and struck her in the back of the head.
He already has admitted the shooting, his mother said Thursday, but she said he told her he was aiming at a light inside the trailer, not at any people.
The mother, named Marta, said she is simply unable to control her son. She plans to ask authorities to lock him up, in the hopes that discipline and structure will help him turn his life around.
“He needs to be in a place where someone can have some control over him,†she said. “You know, he’s only 10.â€
But those 10 years have been tough ones.
Two years ago, the boy watched as his older brother was killed in a drive-by shooting in another tough Latino barrio, according to counselors at Barrio Station, a community service group.
His single, unemployed mother struggles alone to raise him, four sisters and two brothers on public assistance checks. Last Christmas, volunteers painted the youth’s ramshackle home, got the family a color television set and bought shoes for each of the kids.
Two elementary schools have kicked him out for fighting and mouthing off to teachers, his mother and community workers said, so, while other boys his age learned long division, he slept or roamed the streets of the crime-ridden Barrio Logan neighborhood, imitating the cocky swagger of hard-core gang members.
While other boys slept, tucked into their beds, he slipped out of his house to wander the streets until 2 a.m. or later. While other boys were known for their skills at video games or Little League baseball, he was known as the scourge of the neighborhood.
And, while another little boy only two years younger was in the trailer he called home, being readied for bed by his mother, the 10-year-old allegedly was sitting on a roof across the alley, firing the fatal bullet into that trailer.
San Diego police officers occasionally picked up the pint-sized youth at Chicano Park--in the heart of Barrio Logan and a high crime area--at 2 a.m. and drove him home.
His formal education consisted of two 30-minute tutoring sessions each week at the library.
The youth was already an accomplished tagger--a painter of graffiti. His spray-painted tag-line, “Loops,†was a common sight in the neighborhood, which is filled with poverty and despair.
Barrio Station Executive Director Rachel Ortiz said Thursday that she and her counselors had warned Marta and her son about the path of crime the boy was following. Ortiz, an ex-con and former heroin addict, knew what she was talking about.
“He was really impressed by prison and the ex-cons in the neighborhood,†she said. “He glorified prison.â€
In an attempt to scare the youth off his path, Ortiz said she warned him that his “pretty face and green eyes would make him somebody’s girlfriend†at the California Youth Authority.
“But even that didn’t work,†Ortiz said. “He laughed and said he was never going to be anybody’s sissy. He was unrepentant and had a lot of problems.â€
On Thursday, residents of Newton Avenue and Evans Street said the youth was a neighborhood terror. Ortiz, who counseled the boy almost every afternoon when he came to use the recreation facilities, described him as “hard and aggressive.â€
Most neighborhood residents had predicted a life of drugs, robbery and, perhaps, murder, for the youth.
Police said they have not yet decided whether to pursue homicide charges in the death of Manuela Garcia de la Rosa. On Wednesday, Garcia’s husband, Fidel Mariscal, said the boy was apparently angry with him because Mariscal refused to continue lending his motor scooter to the child.
Police said that the 10-year-old boy and two male companions, ages 13 and 14, were shooting a .22-caliber Uzi-type weapon from a roof across from Garcia’s trailer. Investigators said the 13-and 14-year-old boys shot the gun in the air.
On Thursday, Marta said her son admitted firing the shot that killed Garcia. The mother had just returned from a visit to Juvenile Hall, where she met with her son, who she said was crying during their visit.
“When he fired, he didn’t know if he hit anybody,†she said. “They weren’t trying to shoot at anyone. He said all three of them were trying to hit a light inside the trailer. . . . Look, I didn’t set out to raise a miscreant or killer. I’m not saying that he was a perfect boy. But he’s only 10 years old.â€
However, police said that the bullet fired by Marta’s son was the only one that hit the trailer.
Marta defended her son and blamed his two older companions, particularly the 14-year-old, for the killing. The 14-year-old produced the pistol and threatened to kill her son unless he too fired the weapon, she contended.
Steve Casey, a spokesman for the San Diego County district attorney, said the youth was being held at Juvenile Hall pending further proceedings. He was arrested on suspicion of shooting a firearm within city limits and shooting into an inhabited building.
But Marta said police have advised her to move out of the neighborhood once her son is released. Anger in the community is running high, she said police told her, and is focused against the boy and his family. She said she kept her children home from school Thursday because of taunts they were receiving from schoolmates.
Homicide Lt. John Welter said Thursday that investigators have not recovered the weapon used to kill Garcia and do not know how the youths acquired it.
“We don’t know where it came from, but it’s our opinion that it was picked up from the streets by one of the three juveniles,†Welter said.
On Thursday, both Marta and Maria, the mother of the 14-year-old accomplice, said they had given police their consent to administer polygraph tests to their sons. Maria said police told her the tests showed that it was Marta’s son who fired the fatal shot.
Welter declined to confirm or deny that the polygraph tests were administered.
Marta said she did not learn about her son’s involvement in the shooting until Monday morning, when a neighbor came to her house and asked her “if I had heard that my son had shot a woman.â€
“I woke my son up and asked him what happened,†Marta said. “He said they had a pistol and were on the roof. . . . I took him across the street, where several policemen were standing, and told them what the neighbors were saying about my son.â€
The woman said officers promptly drove her and her son to the police station, where they interviewed the boy for almost seven hours before allowing her to take him home.
Marta said she did not hear from police again until Wednesday, when an officer called her to say they were coming by to pick up her son again. When officers arrived, they took the boy into custody, Marta said.
The two women, who are next-door neighbors, are now bitter enemies, blaming each other for her son’s predicament. Although her son is older, Maria said, he is a follower who was easily influenced by the 10-year-old’s strong personality.
However, Maria also acknowledged that her teen-age son was no stranger to trouble. She said the youth was under house arrest at the time of the shooting for violating probation. He had been placed on probation for shoplifting a pair of pants, after she told him that she could not afford to buy him a new pair for a dance he was attending, Maria said.
“She (Marta) blames my son because he’s older. But the truth is that we mothers did not send out our sons that night to shoot anybody. My son was wrong for getting involved, and he is going to have to pay for what he did. But it was her son who fired the fatal shot, and that cannot be denied,†Maria said.
Although their houses are next door to each other, both Maria and Marta said they did not hear any of the shots that police said were fired the night that Garcia was killed. Welter declined to say which roof was used by the youths on the night of the shooting.
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