This is why 2-year-old Yelena Guzman is dead

Talk about senseless.

This is from Mark Wiebe's coverage of a preliminary hearing for the teens involved in the shooting that killed 2-year-old Yelena Guzman. The players are Luis Gonzalez, 16; Daniel Perez Jr., 17; Jose Franco Jr., 19; and Valentino Hernandez, 18. The judge ruled that Perez, the one who allegedly pulled the trigger, will be tried as an adult.

Prosecutors allege that on April 3, the four teenagers targeted the Kansas City, Kan., home of Yelena’s grandparents, where they believed a rival gang member named “Papa” lived.

Gonzalez testified that he and Perez did a dry run of the shooting earlier that day with the leader of Familia Loca, their small gang. Gonzalez identified that leader only as “Filero.” He said Filero accused Papa of shooting up his home.

When the three returned to Filero’s house a few blocks away, Gonzalez saw Franco, a “second captain” in the gang, cleaning a shotgun. Gonzalez said he and Perez felt pressure to complete the “mission,” and feared a beating if they didn’t. Perez, meanwhile, worried that he might be caught violating the terms of his probation, Gonzalez said.

The two got into a car, placing a shotgun on the back seat. The leaders remained at Filero’s home.

“We were just praying, hopefully, that we don’t hit the wrong person,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said he parked in an alley behind the house. Perez grabbed the shotgun, approached the house and fired several shots.

“All I heard was bang, pause — bang, pause — bang, pause,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez testified that after Perez ran back to the car, he said, “ ‘Man, man, I can’t believe we just did that.’ He just said, ‘I hope I didn’t hit anybody.’ ”

When the two returned to Filero’s house, they heard sirens. Filero and Franco told them they had done well.

--- Sara Shepherd

Anatomy of a KCK drive-by: 3

By Greg Reeves
North 27th Street, Kansas City, Kan., on patrol Friday night with PO Sandy Carrera (right):
A car drives past a home and fires bullets into the air. A teen in the home comes out and fires at the car, wounding an occupant.
People in the car, the teen believes, are the same ones who drove by the night before and fired into the house.
Is the boy a victim, a suspect, or both?
The youth, who had fled after shooting, returns to the scene and calmly approaches the police tape.
“I have the right to defend my home,” he tells officers.
At this point two things happen:

• The boy is handcuffed and placed in a police car.
• A live, late-breaking TV news crew, recently arrived on the scene,films this - just another young African-American goin’ down.

The boy’s mother doesn’t like this one bit. She lets loose a stream of curses at the TV crew.
She tells them her son’s a juvenile and warns them not to put him on the air. Several neighbors standing around share the sentiment.
I didn’t see what the TV station aired, if anything. So I’m in no position to criticize.
I do know that

• Later, the boy was released from handcuffs and led police into woods behind his home in a search for the gun he acknowledged throwing there.
• Police, at the end,  didn’t think anyone involved would press charges.

“These kids are going to end up J-1 (homicide victims/suspects),” an officer opines

Earlier posts in this series:
On patrol with the KCKPD
Anatomy of a KCK drive-by: 1
Anatomy of a KCK drive-by: 2

Comments welcome!

Anatomy of a KCK drive-by: 2

By Greg Reeves

The woman, it turns out, has a son, 17, who ran out the back door when the shooting started.

Several things catch cops’ attention:

• No fresh bullet marks are found on the house.
• A fully-loaded pistol-grip Mossberg 88 shotgun is found on the ground next to the house behind two parked cars - a perfect firing position toward the street.
• Handgun shell casings are all over the sidewalk in front of the house.
• A bullet hole is found in the house across the street, and in a van in front of that house.

Police suspect - and the woman confirms, under close questioning by PO Sandy Carrera (above, right) ("No BS, OK?") that her son fired shots at the passing vehicle.

About this time police receive a call that a youth has shown up with a gunshot wound to the arm. At a separate location, police find the green Chevrolet Caprice the woman said was the vehicle used in the drive-by.

Soon the son will return to the scene, minutes behind a live, late-breaking TV news crew dipping into this drama. It's about to get ugly.

Previous posts in this series:
Anatomy of a KCK drive-by: 1
On patrol with the KCKPD
On patrol tonight with the KCKPD

Anatomy of a KCK drive-by: 1

By Greg Reeves
Police have a term for situations in which everyone is simultaneously a victim and a suspect – cluster.
That’s actually an abbreviation, but you get the point.
Police officer Sandy Carrera (right) and I rolled up on the scene of a reported drive-by shooting on North 27th Friday evening in Kansas City, Kan.
A woman in a red tank top comes running out the front door, near hysterics:
“I’ve got little bitty babies in there!”, she says. She names three youths who she says drove past their house firing guns.
“They started shooting and we turned off the lights and starting grabbing little bitty kids,” the woman says.
The front of her home is pockmarked by shotgun pellets – but she says that was from the previous night’s drive-by.
The attacks are part of a two-year-old feud involving a nephew, now in police custody, she says.
She describes tonight’s attackers as in a green Chevrolet Caprice. Police search and soon find the vehicle – empty.
Not everything is as it seems, police will soon learn.

Previous posts in this series:
On patrol with the KCKPD
On patrol tonight with the KCKPD

On patrol with the KCKPD

By Greg Reeves
The people and police of Kansas City, Kan., have always been among the friendliest in the area, once you get to know them. There’s an unassuming informality about the place I’ve always found irresistible.
That wasn’t any different Friday night when I rode with the KCK police on the 2 p.m. – 10 p.m. shift in the city’s central district.
I rode with Officer Sandy Carrera, 37, bilingual cop/boxer (left). She’s been a KCK cop 11 years. The boxer part – she’s training for a Nov. 12 police-fire benefit.
It was a slow shift that ended up with a driveby shooting . I’ll describe the evening’s events in a series of posts. Here are our calls:

On patrol tonight with the KCKPD

...headed over to 7th and Minnesota in KCK to ride along in Center District, I think they call it, with the Kansas City, Kan./Unified Government Police Department, 2 p.m. to about 10 p.m. or 11 p.m.

...should be some interesting stories.