The examination of Santana Row undermines the story of the teenage death

San Jose-on a press conference last week about the deadly stabbing of a 15-year-old boy in the Santana Row by a group of teenagers, the chief of police Paul Joseph, offered a comprehensive narrative of a “senseless” attack and attracted the attention of the national media to the city.

Joseph said that David Gutierrez, when he was traveling with his girlfriend on the evening of Valentine's Day, was approached by the teenagers and was examined over his gang railways, of which he had none. This was followed by the teenage of 18-year-old, three 16-year-olds and a 13-year-old david as a group.

Then, in the words of the chief, David “managed to flee and ran away from them. However, one of the suspects, a 13-year-old man, followed him again, armed with a knife this time, and the 13-year-old suspect brutally stabbed the victim several times. “

But an affidavit from the police who accompanied the indictment against the lonely adult – one day after the press conference in court – tells a different story, citing witness accounts, including that of David's girlfriend and a security officer who broke out the first attack and surveillance video from a nearby restaurant.

The affidavit, which is also known as the police explanation of the facts, mainly adheres to the first part of the chief's explanation, but diverges from there. Detective wrote that four of the teenagers ran away, and when the 13-year-old boy, who was now separated, probably tried to leave the dispute, David confronted a lonely suspect, which was red.

According to the same summary, David wanted to fight one against one. The suspect said he didn't want it and he had already “integrated his hits”. “David repeated his challenge, and” the suspect then produced a folding pocket knife “and stabbed it.

This difference in the stories is blatantly for the office of the public defender of the Santa Clara district, which represents the 13-year-old boy.

“The facts described by the police authority show that the stab was removed from the first attack … and no planned attack in the group,” said the deputy defender of the public, Miguel Rodriguez. “This is important because the refusal of the younger and smaller 13-year-olds to deal in a fight, followed by an application for violence, if there was a struggle, is suitable for possible claims of self-defense.”

Damon Silver, the reigning defender of the public defense lawyer, also emphasized the politicization of the case when Joseph and Mayor Matt Mahan complained in a lack of meaningful consequences in the youth justice system for young teenagers who were accused of severe violent crimes.

Although the two city leaders were careful not to say that these forces were explicitly played in David's death, they describe an ongoing strategy of gang leaders to use their youngest members in order to expressly commit violence because they are less pregnant than adult offenders. Joseph, who was repeated by Mahan, said that minors had become “killing tool of choice” and the wider trends “encourage young people to commit violent crimes”.

Silver said that these comments would even have analyzed that these comments wrongly combine the case of Santana Row with these problems, and that it is important to make it clear that “the limited public facts of this situation do not fit the law enforcement and mayor of adults that use children to commit crime”.

“Every loss of life is devastating. However, if you make changes to the turning system in response to a tragic situation, this almost inevitably leads to injustices. It took decades to recognize that the criminal legal system against color communities became weapons and that our color of the color suffered greatest, ”said Silver. “The return to failed guidelines for the treatment of children such as adults and the renewed feeding of a re -wasted mass liability is a cynical and opportunistic reaction of people who invest in prisons on combating basic causes.”

The police authority stood in the remarks of the press conference and said in a statement that “the boss, when the boss mentioned the victim, described the boss a second confrontation” and emphasized that “the only person who (armed) was the suspect”. The statement also confirmed that Joseph's remark about gangs and minors “did not speak specifically about this case”.