2nd Suspect in Shooting of Teacher Surrenders

A second suspect in the stray-bullet shooting that left a 30-year-old schoolteacher with brain damage has surrendered, Los Angeles police said Thursday.

Antonio Chavez Moses, 19--on probation after pleading guilty to manslaughter in a previous street shooting--contacted his probation officer, Willie Riley, who brought Moses to the Police Department’s South Bureau homicide division office Wednesday night, Det. Tal Terrell said.

“He said it was just getting too hot for him out there,� Terrell said.

Moses, booked on suspicion of attempted murder, is believed to have assisted Frazier Joseph Francis, 18, in the Feb. 22 attack in which fifth-grade teacher Alfredo Perez was wounded.

Francis, a reputed gang member, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he fired the shot that lodged in Perez’s skull.

“Moses is not the triggerman, he’s the assist man,� Terrell said. “But he is equally culpable.�

Terrell declined to discuss what role Moses is believed to have played in the Perez shooting, which sparked widespread outrage.

Riley could not be reached for comment. When a warrant for Moses’ arrest was issued three weeks ago, Moses was incorrectly identified to the news media by police as Antonio Chavez Morales.

“I guess it was a misprint or something,� Terrell said.

Jorge Carroll, a state parole agent, said Moses was sentenced recently to three years’ probation--with no prison time--after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges arising from the fatal shooting of a 20-year-old man at Figueroa and 109th streets in 1993.

“It was a gang thing,� Carroll said of that incident. “Moses had heard there were some [rival] Crips in the neighborhood, and he mistook two guys in a parked car for the Crips. When they didn’t answer him, he opened fire.�

Carroll said Moses was arrested in that shooting after he was overheard bragging about the crime.

“The detectives did a very good job in that case, but Moses was later allowed to cop a plea to manslaughter, and he didn’t do any prison time,� Carroll said. “They allowed him out, and that teacher got shot.�

In the Perez case, Francis fired two shots at a man driving by whom he recognized as a member of a rival gang faction, detectives said.

The shots missed their target. One of them pierced a second-floor classroom window at the Figueroa Street Elementary School but missed the teacher and 21 students there.

The other passed through a window of the school’s first-floor library.

Perez, who was visiting the library with his class of 23 fifth-graders, was struck in the head.

Initially, the 30-year-old teacher was not expected to live.

But as his condition gradually improved, he was removed from life-support systems and transferred to a rehabilitation unit at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

Although still unable to talk, Perez can write and has increased mobility on his once-paralyzed left side.

Although his improvement has been slight, doctors are optimistic, saying it often takes up to a year to see the maximum recovery from such a serious brain injury.

The Perez shooting attracted national attention and prompted telephone calls from President Clinton expressing sympathy.