http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3000606 Teen fatally shot at home of best friend 16-year-old boy charged in latest incident involving children and guns By PEGGY O'HARE Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Janel Marquina wasn't looking for trouble. She wasn't on the streets, and she wasn't defying her mother. Instead, the 15-year-old North Shore High School freshman was at her best friend's house, helping a first-grader with a book report. ADVERTISEMENT As she sat at a table with her friend's niece, 16-year-old Arthur Casiano brought out a shotgun. Moments later, Marquina, an honor roll student, died on the kitchen floor, accidentally shot in the face. Casiano frantically awakened his sleeping mother, then paced the kitchen floor, sobbing over the body of his sister's best friend, "Mom, I'm scared. I didn't mean to. ... What do I do, Mom? What do I do?" The shooting at Casiano's home in the 13800 block of Force around 7:45 p.m. Tuesday has shattered two North Shore-area families and once again raised questions about how a juvenile gained access to a firearm. Though sheriff's detectives say the shooting appears unintentional, Casiano was charged with murder and placed in the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center. His family says he is under a 24-hour suicide watch. The gun belonged to Casiano's older brother, who kept it behind his bedroom door. "He knows it's only for emergencies," said the brother, Noe Delgado, 20, who was not home at the time of the shooting. "I don't know what he was thinking. I guess he was showing off to her. ... Playing with a gun, people get hurt." Delgado, whose hair was braided by the slain girl two days ago, said he recently got the gun for protection after someone shot at his house. Tuesday's shooting followed a recent spate of incidents involving children and guns — an Alvin sixth-grader accidentally shot himself in the leg Tuesday after bringing a gun to school; last month, a 15-year-old girl was injured when she was shot by a 16-year-old boy playing with a gun in the Cuney Homes area of southeast Houston. In 2003, a 13-year-old girl was shot at a northwest Houston apartment by a 15-year-old boy after the teens skipped school. On Tuesday, Marquina left a note for her mother, saying she'd be right back, then walked down the street to the home of her best friend, Julie Casiano, also a North Shore freshman. Casiano's brother brought out the shotgun after Marquina asked to see it, his family said. Casiano's mother was asleep in a back bedroom with her 4-month-old grandson. As Julie Casiano washed dishes and Marquina helped her friend's 6-year-old niece with a book report, Arthur Casiano took a shell out of the weapon's chamber. He fired at the floor to make sure the gun was unloaded, and nothing discharged, said his sister, Lori Bunker, 24. Then, as he lifted the gun to check the chamber, "he pulled the trigger, and Janel was in the path of the bullet," Bunker said. The blast hit the 15-year-old girl in the chin and exited through the back of her head. The 6-year-old she was helping saw everything, family members said. Arthur Casiano ran to his mother's bedroom for help, and fled the house shortly afterward. He later was arrested. Marquina's mother, unaware of what had happened while working at a furniture store, telephoned the Casiano home to speak with her daughter. Casiano's mother was hysterical, telling her to come over. "She was telling me, 'Rhonda, you need to get home — Janel's been shot.' And I said, 'No, you're lying,' " Rhonda Gomez said. Her boss drove her to the home, where Gomez bolted through the crime scene tape. "I said, 'Where's my daughter, where's my daughter? ... Is she OK?' And (the officer) said, 'No, she's dead.' And I just lost it," Gomez said. Gomez said she did not know of the gun's presence in the home where her daughter visited and had no idea someone shot at the house several weeks ago. Gomez said Wednesday she is not angry with the 16-year-old boy accused of firing the shot. She and the boy's mother are both single women, working to support their families. "My daughter didn't deserve to die this way. I'm not mad at him — I just want to know why he took the gun out in the first place," Gomez said. Casiano's mother said she is frightened for her son, but also feels like she has lost a daughter. "It's like it's just a dream, and I keep saying, when am I going to wake up? But I never wake up. I don't even want to live there anymore," Nancy Casiano said between sobs. this is just horrible why cant kids learn that guns arent cool!!! hope both families get through this tragedy.
Damn it people, put your guns up in a safe spot where immature, young, or ignorant people canot get to them. +
this just reinforces my concerns..... just last week, my daughter came home talking about how she was at a friends,and they were looking at a shotgun that her friend had gotten for Christmas... Eventho the friends father was with them....I still forbade her from going back over there......I have read way too many stories about kids playing with guns like this and accidents happening... I dont see any reason for a shotgun to be pulled out in the home unless you are cleaning it in preperation for going hunting or something...certainly not just to mess around with it or show it off... It is flatout criminal to allow/encourage 12-13 yr old kids to pull out firearms like that in the home..... It just seems to end in tragedy way too many times....I would rather be seen as over protective than to be seen as a grieving father in the news because my kid got shot by an idiot that was playing with a gun. Poor kid...poor family...when will we ever learn? ++
Too bad the Founding Fathers didn't think of the idiots who wouldn't know how to secure their guns. RIP. +
One of my best friends is a huge gun collector. I don't even like going over to his place because I always have this thought in the back of my mind that he is going to show me some of his guns and that an accident could happen to either one of us or both. Guns should not be completely banned but I agree with Dakota that there has to be some sensible gun control laws in this country. Reading a story like this really sickens me because it should have never happened - just absolute senselessness.
Recently I was talking to my oldest son about this...telling him to make sure he never plays with guns...that if he's at a friend's house and someone pulls out a gun to look at, to just walk away. I just hope he has the courage to do that if the time came. Guns freak me out. I don't wanna take your guns away or anything. But I'm not comfortable around them. Responsible or whatever. It's an instrument designed to kill. That just weirds me out.
Stories like this make me want to rant about guns and the abuse of 2nd amendment in ways that are only appropriate for D&D. I just can never understand these gun owners. Especially those with kids in the house. I mean, good lord, how little common sense do you have if you leave a loaded gun out in the open with gun-ignorant people running in the house?
Guys, there are ALREADY a million "sensible" gun control laws out there. Exactly what LAW would have stopped this idiot from storing his gun like this? Enlighten me. All the laws in the world won't prevent an ignorant fool from keeping a loaded shotgun thrown behind a door.
The 16 year old was obviously showing off by doing the "look at me and my gun" routines. I'm sure he had to pull the trigger to get it to go off. He should do jail time because stupidity is not an excuse when you take someone's life. I would say the 20 year old is just as stupid for having it so easily accessible and then he's talking as if my younger brother should have known better. No...you should have known better! It's ironic that so many people out there buy a gun for home protection but it's that gun that usually ends up killing a family member or friend instead. Somehow, I think the chance of an "accident" occurring is greater than one being able to actually use the gun in a home protection scenario. I would almost rather just take my chances without a gun. Mom didn't really live up to her responsibility, either. She had to, or should have, known the shotgun was in the house and where it was. She actually should have disallowed her 20 year old to even have brought the gun into the home. A responsible parent would have prevented this. So, she is not immune from the blame, either. So, somebody shot at your house. How is buying a gun going to stop someone from shooting at your house? You gonna run outside and just start shooting? Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid...and one more dead.
They say that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people. -- Eddie Izzard
My second cousin was killed the same way... he was 16 and his friends were messing around with a gun. Either they didn't know it was loaded or didn't realize it was going to go off. I just don't understand why you have to keep these things loaded when you're not using them. And, in general, teenagers can't be trusted to handle one by themselves. This has happened too many times. Put them out of the kids' reach.
I'm reading this with my three week old daughter sleeping in my lap and my heart just breaks for everyone in this story. I'd hate to lose my daughter that way but I would also hate to see her do any of the many incredibly foolish things teenagers do when they stop thinking. I commend the parents who have spoken to their kids about guns, I hope to remember to do that. Yet I can think of so many non-gun related near misses from my own childhood and I know I can't keep her from all of them. Something I noticed from the article was that in the midst of this tragedy the mother of the boy was not immediately defensive of her son, he wasn't denying that he shot her, and her mother didn't seem to be expressing bitterness toward the family. It looks as if they are all struggling through the tragedy together.
