Familia Loca wanted revenge on a rival KCK gang. Instead, they spilled the blood of a 2-year-old girl.
Millhaven
crime, homicide, burglary, robbery they bring with them
This is the sad story of a 2 year old caught in the crossfire
http://news.pitch.com/2008-05-01/news/the-assassination-of-yelena-guzman/full
The War on La Familia
Familia Loca wanted revenge on a rival KCK gang. Instead, they spilled
the blood of a 2-year-old girl.
By Carolyn Szczepanski
Published: May 1, 2008
Before the night of April 3, 2007, Fernando Guzman and Ramona Moreno
were unfamiliar with the sound of gunfire. At first, they thought they
had heard an explosion.
Michael Mcclure
Ramona Moreno and Fernando Guzmán lost their 2-year-old daughter,
Yelena, when the gang battle hit the wrong target.
Daniel Perez Jr.
Carlos Moreno
Jose Franco Jr.
Subject(s): Bishop Ward High School, Argentine District, Florencia 13,
Familia Loca, Kansas City, Kansas The young couple had spent the
evening at the hospital, where Ramona's sister had given birth that
day. They had left their 2-year-old daughter, Yelena, at her
grandparents' house — a tidy yellow-and-green home on North 17th
Street in Kansas City, Kansas. Yelena was an affectionate child who
earned the nickname "La Choky" because of her tendency to hug her dad,
Fernando, tightly around his neck. She met her parents at the door
when they got back a little after 9:30 p.m.
Ramona, a soft-spoken 23-year-old with a porcelain face and blond-
streaked hair, sat on the couch in the living room. She watched Yelena
as she played on the floor in front of the entertainment center,
munching on a tortilla. The protective mother asked the toddler to
stop playing with a glass statue in the shape of praying hands that
her grandma kept on the shelf.
Then came the noise. The frightened family heard a series of loud
blasts coming from the entryway. They didn't know it was a hail of
bullets from a gunman standing at their front gate.
Ramona started screaming. Fernando ran from the kitchen. Yelena
crumpled to the ground.
Carlos Moreno, Ramona's brother, had been watching TV in his bedroom.
The 21-year-old recognized the sound of shotgun fire. He darted out of
his room. He saw his niece holding her head in the entryway. He
crawled to retrieve her. Keeping low, he pulled Yelena to a back room,
leaving a trail of blood smeared on the hardwood floor.
Fernando grabbed his daughter from Carlos. He didn't realize she was
hurt until his right arm started to feel hot and wet. Under her long
black hair, Yelena had been struck just below her left ear. The wound
bled onto her father's shoulder. She was still breathing and her eyes
were open, but she didn't respond when her parents spoke to her.
Ramona called 911, but she was terrified that the paramedics wouldn't
come in time. She wanted to drive to the hospital herself. "But — I
don't know why — I couldn't touch Yelena," she says. "I was afraid she
would die in my arms."
They waited in a bedroom in the back of the house, listening for the
sound of sirens. Ramona couldn't understand why her brother, Carlos,
wouldn't give her a hug.
"I'm sorry," Carlos said. "It's my fault. It's my fault."
When the ambulance arrived, Fernando rushed outside with Yelena in his
arms. The front porch was sprinkled with shattered glass. As he passed
through the chain-link fence at the end of the yard, he didn't notice
the five red-tipped shotgun shells partly hidden in the foliage near
the sidewalk. Ramona jumped in the back of the ambulance and asked
Yelena to stay with her.
Once the ambulance took off toward Children's Mercy Hospital, Fernando
cornered his brother-in-law. He knew his in-laws didn't have problems
with anybody. He knew his family had no reason to be targeted.
"Who did this, man?" Fernando asked.
"The FLs," Carlos said.
The FLs were members of a gang called Familia Loca. Carlos was part of
rival gang Florencia 13. For nearly a decade, Kansas City, Kansas,
police have been monitoring street robberies and drive-by shootings
connected to Hispanic gangs. But in 2007, the violence between F13 and
Familia Loca escalated. Their battles weren't confined to the streets
but aimed at each other's homes.
And last April, an innocent 2-year-old got caught in the crossfire.
Ramona and Fernando met through one of Ramona's friends from Wyandotte
High School. She had come to Kansas City in 1996, when her parents
moved from Mexico to find work. Fernando arrived in the Midwest three
years later, after growing up in Los Angeles.
They dated for a year before they settled down together. When their
first child was born, Fernando suggested the name Yelena. He got the
name from a character in the Vin Diesel movie xXx.
The small family lived in a square, white house with brown paint
trimming the windows. Beyond the fence that outlined their mostly
barren backyard, the headstones of the Mt. Calvary Catholic Cemetery
framed a view of Interstate 635. They both worked as janitors. Ramona
says they felt safe in a community surrounded by so many family
members.
Yelena was an energetic child who sang and danced, even when there was
no music. She watched sports with her dad but loved wearing make-up
and clomping around in her mom's high heels. She craved being the
center of attention; at her second birthday party, she wore a bright-
pink dress to complement the Strawberry Shortcake theme.
Ramona says the family didn't have friends who were victims of
violence. She had concerns about her brother, though. Carlos had a job
at Epic Landscaping, but he'd had some trouble with police. In August
2006, he was charged with fleeing the scene of an accident and
possession of marijuana. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to
probation.
Carlos was evasive or got angry when Ramona asked whether he was in a
gang. A few months before their home was attacked, Ramona took a
disposable camera to Wal-Mart to have the film developed. She thought
the camera was hers, but it belonged to Carlos. The pictures showed
Carlos and his friends flashing what Ramona knew were gang signs.
Carlos' gang, F13, is a well-known and violent gang that originated in
South Central Los Angeles and became known for trafficking narcotics
from Mexico. In the late 1990s, officials with the Kansas City,
Kansas, Police Department saw signs that F13 — which had been growing
across the country — had spread to Kansas. The local F13 members ran
petty street robberies and occasionally took swipes at their enemies
with drive-by shootings. Kansas City, Kansas, police officials were
unwilling to answer questions related to gang activity, saying even
general queries were the subjects of ongoing investigations.
Originally, the members of Familia Loca — also known as FL — were part
of the F13 gang. According to testimony from Alex Bruce, a Wyandotte
County employee who works specifically with gang members, FL split
away sometime in 2006. The two gangs operated in different areas. F13
was considered a south-side gang. FL was north side. But in early
2007, Bruce said, F13 started vandalizing graffiti that FL had sprayed
on buildings well within their own territory. The two groups got into
a turf war. Those initial volleys of spray paint escalated into
physical confrontations.
The violence started down the path to murder in early 2007. According
to court documents, Carlos and other F13 members were allegedly
driving in a black Ford Expedition in January 2007 when they spotted
José Franco Jr. and Valentino Hernandez, members of FL. Austin Quijas,
who was a passenger in Carlos' vehicle, allegedly opened fire on
Hernandez at the intersection of Seventh Street and Central Avenue.
The next month, Familia Loca retaliated. According to Carlos, FL
members walked up to his parents' yellow stucco home on the night of
February 19, 2007. He sat on the porch with some friends. Carlos told
police that Hernandez and Franco fired shots into the black Expedition
parked in the driveway and other vehicles that belonged to Carlos'
visitors.
The violence continued throughout the spring and came to a climax on
April 1. That Sunday, Hernandez's home — a worn white residence
perched on a hill near 14th Street and Washington — was targeted.
Hernandez, according to court testimony, later showed fellow gang
members the holes that peppered his home from what looked like a .40-
caliber handgun and an AK-47 assault rifle.
His house had been shot up twice before, according to the testimony of
FL gang member Corey Cisneros. But Hernandez was particularly angry
about the April 1 attack. He found a bullet in the mattress where his
mother was sleeping that night and another round in a couch pillow
where his nephew was lying.
Hernandez wanted revenge. The F13 member who lived the closest was
Carlos Moreno. "Valentino said it was the right thing to do," Cisneros
testified. "An eye for an eye."
When he woke up on Tuesday morning, Luis Gonzalez didn't know the day
would end with a deadly mission.
Standing barely 5 feet tall, with slender arms and spiky black hair,
Gonzalez looks the part of his gang nickname — Duende, or "little
elf." At the time, the slight 16-year-old was a ninth-grader at Bishop
Ward High School and a relatively new member of Familia Loca.
That Tuesday, he drove his mom's white Oldsmobile Intrigue to school.
He came back after school to look after his brothers until his mother
got home from work. He headed out to his girlfriend's house once it
started to get dark. The two were watching TV when Gonzalez got a call
from Daniel Perez Jr.
A dark-eyed teenager with short, close-cropped hair, Perez was
Gonzalez's close friend. They didn't go to the same school, but
Gonzalez said they knew each other from the streets. At the time,
Perez attended Associated Youth Services, an alternative school for
kids who had been suspended from the public system long term.
Perez became a member of Familia Loca in early 2006. He showed a
tattoo of the letters "FL," written in cursive on his upper-left
pectoral, to a youth worker with El Centro, according to court
testimony. He was given the name Sylvester, after the cartoon cat.
That summer, he was charged with criminal possession of a firearm with
a barrel longer than 12 inches and obstruction of justice. In
December, he was charged again with obstructing the legal process.
By early 2007, though, Perez was looking for a way out of the gang. He
told a teacher that his entire family was considering moving out of
the state so he could distance himself from Familia Loca. He asked a
youth worker about getting his tattoo removed, and he took a job at
J.C. Penney in Overland Park.
Being part of Familia Loca wasn't an identity that could be easily
cast off. Cisneros testified that quitting the gang would be
dangerous. Without the protection of the group, he explained, a former
member risked being picked off by a rival gang.
If he was looking for a way out, Perez hadn't found it by April 3.
That night, he called Gonzalez to make plans to check in at
Hernandez's house. Gonzalez testified that he couldn't recall what
time they rode over, but when they arrived, a shotgun was propped near
the front door. And, according to Gonzalez, Franco had a directive as
soon as they walked in.
"He said we were just in time because we were about to do a mission,"
Gonzalez testified.
Gonzalez was shocked. It was a Tuesday night — unusual timing for a
drive-by shooting. But according to two gang members, Franco and
Hernandez were highly ranked in the hierarchy of Familia Loca. They
were "captains." They had the right to give orders. If Gonzalez and
Perez refused, they'd be subject to violations. That could mean
anything from a punch in the face to being beaten to death.
Gonzalez testified that Franco took them into a small bedroom to
explain the mission. Franco told Perez to sneak up to the side of
Carlos Moreno's house, crack a window and start shooting. Perez said
that would take too much time. The two argued. Hernandez heard the
raised voices and suggested they go to the front door instead. Perez
was still hesitant.
According to Gonzalez, Hernandez grabbed the gun and pointed it at
him. "You do it," Hernandez commanded.
Hernandez shoved the weapon — a single-barrel black shotgun with a
sawed-off pistol grip — at him.
"The gun's too big," Gonzalez said. With his slight frame, he argued,
it would have too much of a kick for him to get off clean shots.
"You're all a bunch of pussies," Hernandez said.
Perez and Gonzalez sat silently in the room for a few moments.
Gonzalez said he told Perez he had the car keys. They could just
leave. Gonzalez said Perez didn't want to risk violating his parole.
But he didn't want to get a gang violation, either. The two went back
out to the living room. Perez told Hernandez he would do it.
According to an account by Gonzalez, Hernandez took them on a dry run
of the crime. Gonzalez drove while Hernandez showed them the route —
just a few blocks down 14th Street, along Minnesota Avenue and through
an alley near 17th and Armstrong. Hernandez pointed out the house with
the gate. Moreno's pack of Newport cigarettes was still sitting on the
ledge of the porch.
Gonzalez testified that when they got back, Franco sat at the dining-
room table. He wore black gloves and was cleaning the shotgun. He
wiped it down with "ointment" that he said would keep it from holding
any fingerprints. Next to him was a box of shotgun shells with red
tips. Franco gave Perez a pair of black gloves and the shotgun.
Perez threw the gun in the backseat of Gonzalez's car and covered it
with a jacket. The two alleged leaders followed their soldiers out to
the car. They wished them luck. All four exchanged handshakes,
twisting their fingers into the FL gang sign.
As they drove the half-mile to the Morenos' home, Gonzalez said the
two teenagers prayed. They asked God to make sure everything turned
out OK. They prayed that they didn't hit the wrong person.
The account of what happened next comes from Gonzalez's and Cisneros'
court testimony.
Gonzalez parked in an alley and turned off the car while Perez put on
the gloves, pulled up the hood on his black sweatshirt and grabbed the
gun from the backseat. He watched Perez as far as the corner. A few
second later, he heard shots.
Bang. Pause. Bang. Pause. Bang. Pause. Bang. Pause.
He turned on the car and saw Perez running, the shotgun in his right
hand. The back door on the driver's side was broken, so Perez threw
the gun through the window and dashed around the back of the car.
Perez was scared but excited as he jumped into the front seat.
"I can't believe I did it," he told Gonzalez.
As they drove back, Perez latched onto one image: the way the white
curtains flew back from the narrow window in the door when the shots
struck the house.
At Hernandez's house on 14th Street, the three gang members were
waiting on the front porch, smoking a blunt. Cisneros said Perez and
Gonzalez were excited when they pulled up.
"We got him," Perez told them as he got out of the car.
"Good job," Hernandez said. "You guys did a mission without fucking
up."
They moved inside, and Hernandez slid the gun under a bed. Then they
heard the sirens. First the police. Then the ambulance. They all knew
what that meant.
"Man, you done shot somebody," Cisneros told Perez.
After a half-hour, the two high schoolers left the alleged leader's
house. They drove west down Minnesota Avenue and passed the north end
of Carlos' street. The area was blocked off with police barricades and
clogged with squad cars and emergency vehicles. Once he got home,
Gonzalez said he turned on the TV. On a news report, he saw a man
carrying a little girl out of a house. He didn't have to wait long
before Perez called.
"Calm down," Gonzalez told Perez. "If you keep your mouth shut, I
will, too."
In the ambulance, Ramona begged her daughter to stay with her. At
Children's Mercy Hospital, she watched doctors wheel Yelena on a
gurney, her head wrapped in a bandage. They told Ramona that a shotgun
slug had damaged vital areas of her daughter's brain — including the
parts that controlled consciousness.
Ramona says she couldn't let Yelena go. As Yelena was taken to
intensive care, Ramona reminded her daughter that they'd bought the
movie Happy Feet earlier that day. She told Yelena that she wanted to
watch it with her again. At 2 a.m., the doctors determined that Yelena
had fallen into a permanent vegetative state. The family agreed to
disconnect the breathing machine. Even then, Ramona hoped for a
miracle as they severed life support. But Yelena didn't breathe.
On the day of her burial, Carlos helped Ramona dress Yelena and put
make-up on her. She knew he felt guilty for his role in Yelena's
slaying, and she told him not to feel bad. But she questioned why he
would get caught up in gang violence.
"Why are you fighting for a place that's not ours?" she remembers
asking him.
After the shooting, Carlos cooperated with police. He gave them the
names of Familia Loca members and said he suspected that Franco and
Hernandez were responsible for the shooting. But his rap sheet had
grown during 2007. In July, he was in a car with stolen tags that was
stopped by Kansas City, Kansas, police. He admitted to the cops that
he was still a member of F13. In September, he pleaded guilty to
charges of stealing a car in Jackson County, Missouri, and was placed
on probation. In November, he was again arrested in Kansas City,
Kansas, for domestic battery and assault on a law-enforcement officer.
After he cooperated with prosecutors in their investigation of the
shooting, the U.S. government deported Carlos to Mexico.
The police put out a pickup order for Franco and Hernandez, but they
had already fled. Gang members testified that they believed Hernandez
had gone to Mexico. He is still at large.
Franco's girlfriend, Marylin Chavez, says Franco told her, in the days
after the shooting, that he wasn't involved. He said he didn't order
the shooting. But she tells The Pitch that Franco knew he'd be a
suspect because of his affiliation with the gang and his past
convictions.
According to juvenile-court records, Franco was convicted on two
counts of aggravated robbery and criminal discharge of a firearm into
an occupied dwelling in 2003. In 2006, he was charged with aiding a
felon. In that case, he drove a getaway car from a drive-by shooting
that severely injured two women. His lawyer argued in court documents
that Franco didn't know the gunman's intent and, given Franco's
juvenile status, deserved a chance at probation. But Franco didn't
make any payments toward the $15,000 in restitution he was ordered to
pay the two injured women and didn't report to court officers. His
probation was revoked.
On July 14, Franco was driving with a cousin when police in Kansas
City, Kansas, spotted him. He tried to run, and police say he fired
shots at the pursuing officers. On July 16, police charged him with
assault on an officer, criminal possession of a firearm and
trespassing.
That day, he also met with a homicide detective from Kansas City,
Kansas. Franco told her that he knew what happened the night Yelena
Guzmán was shot. He said it was Luis Gonzalez who drove and Daniel
Perez who pulled the trigger. On July 19, Gonzalez told police that
José Franco had given the order.
Before the end of the year, Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome
A. Gorman charged all four teenagers with first-degree murder.
On March 11, 2008, the morning that Daniel Perez began his trial on
first-degree murder charges, the courtroom in the Wyandotte County
District Court was cold and silent. Prosecutors wheeled in a dolly
covered in binders thick with police statements and boxes of evidence
sealed in manila envelopes. The Guzmán family lined the front row of
the otherwise empty gallery.
Perez looked like a kid who'd been pulled out of class at a prep
school. He wore a spotless white dress shirt, black slacks and a blank
expression. The 17-year-old, who was being tried as an adult,
occasionally scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad as Gonzalez
testified against him.
In exchange for testifying against his friends, Gonzalez had agreed to
plead guilty to first-degree murder charges in juvenile court; he
could serve as much as seven years in detention. On the stand, his
collarbone poked through the neckline of his navy detention-center
jumpsuit, and the prosecutors had to remind him to speak up. He
answered questions: "Yes, sir" and "No, sir." He cocked his head to
one side and stole darting glances at Perez. He anxiously clasped and
unclasped his hands, rubbing his thumbs into his palms.
In addition to Gonzalez's testimony, prosecutors called Cisneros, who
recounted what he had witnessed at Hernandez's house. Cisneros didn't
participate in the planning of the shooting and wasn't charged with a
crime.
Prosecutors had an interpreter read transcripts of taped phone
conversations that Perez made in jail. The teenager spoke often with
his mother, discussing the evidence against him and worrying that the
testimony against him was strong. In a phone call on December 21,
Perez told his mother that praying didn't ease his mind anymore.
"Are you guilty?" his mother asked.
"Of course, yes," he responded.
Perez didn't take the stand, and he didn't respond to The Pitch's
request for an interview. After three days of testimony, it took the
jury just four hours to find Perez guilty of first-degree murder. Last
week, Judge John McNally sentenced Perez to life in prison with no
possibility of parole for 20 years.
During a stormy week in April, Franco sat in the same chilly courtroom
facing charges of first-degree murder. Prosecutor Michael Russell
argued to the jury that Franco was just as guilty of murder as Perez
because he gave the order and then helped plan the shooting.
Franco was dressed in a polo shirt and khaki pants. His long black
hair was neatly slicked back. Unlike Perez, with his empty stare,
Franco looked scared as he surveyed the courtroom with tired eyes.
Gonzalez again recounted the events leading to the shooting. This
time, he seemed more anxious. His legs bounced nervously. He looked
more frequently toward the defendant's table. After nearly an hour of
questioning by the prosecutor, Gonzalez rubbed his face, as if on the
verge of tears. Franco stared straight ahead.
William Dunn, Franco's attorney, questioned Gonzalez's story. On July
19, Gonzalez told police it was Franco who went on the dry run. In a
September 6 statement, he said it was Hernandez. Dunn argued that the
discrepancy should make jurors wary of Gonzalez's account.
When Cisneros took the stand, he surprised prosecutors by becoming
uncooperative. Cisneros pulled out a small piece of paper and read,
"With all due respect to Mr. Russell and the court, I refuse to
testify on José Franco until the safety of my family can be assured."
Judge McNally told Cisneros that he had no right to refuse to testify.
He wasn't being charged in the case; if he kept quiet, he'd be held in
contempt. Cisneros said he understood the consequences but still
refused to talk.
Dunn didn't call any witnesses. He didn't have to, he argued in his
closing statements. No physical evidence connected Franco to the
crime. The only person linking Franco to the shooting was Gonzalez, a
guy who rolled on his lifelong friend and changed his story in police
statements, Dunn said. A guy who got a sweet deal in exchange for
testifying, he added.
"You cannot convict on that kind of witness," Dunn continued in
closing statements. "You've got a jailhouse snitch. That's it."
As the jury filed out, Franco looked each of them in the eyes. Before
lunch, the count was 9-3 in favor of conviction. The sticking point
was Gonzalez's credibility, whether his story could be trusted. After
lunch, one juror still wasn't convinced. At 3:30 p.m., the jury told
McNally they were deadlocked. The judge declared a mistrial.
Russell assured the Guzmáns that the case would be retried. But
sitting through a trial gets harder each time, Fernando says. Twice,
he and Ramona had to look at photos of the house, lit up like a
skeleton in the eerie glow of the police lights that night. Twice,
they listened to the coroner describe Yelena's wounds and saw images
from her autopsy.
Fernando says it is striking to see such young kids sitting there in
the defendant's chair. But he doesn't feel any sympathy. The
teenagers, he says, have never tried to show him that they were
sorry.
A month after Yelena's death, Ramona found out she was pregnant. She
gave birth to Fernando Jr. on January 11. The couple doesn't want him
to grow up surrounded by the kind of gang violence that cut short his
sister's life, so they're considering leaving Kansas City, Kansas.
But Kansas City was Yelena's home. This is where Fernando had hoped
she'd play sports in high school before going on to college. So they
buried her at the Maple Hill Cemetery in the Argentine District. They
visit her most Sundays, on a slope dotted with evergreen trees. Her
grave is marked with a graceful black headstone. In the middle,
there's a picture of the 2-year-old with pigtails and a subtle smile.
Above the photo is written her affectionate nickname, "La Choky."
On April 4, Yelena's family and friends visited her grave to mark the
one-year anniversary of her death. They brought her balloons and
roses, placing them next to the silk daffodils, miniature Elmo toys
and porcelain angels that surround the headstone.
Because of the harsh weather and the distance from the parking lot to
the grave, Ramona had always insisted that Fernando Jr. keep warm in
the car. But for the first time since he was born in January, the
afternoon was mild and sunny.
"Look, Yelena, this is your brother," Fernando told his daughter as he
carried his son to her grave. "He loves you. He misses you."
Fernando told her the family had to let her go but she'd always be in
their hearts.
And then they let the balloons float into the sky.