Eleven-year-old Julián Guzman and his cousin had been hanging out at a household celebration late Saturday after they determined to department out on their very own.
But what began as harmless enjoyable would quickly take a devastating flip.
They took to the streets of their east Houston neighborhood to play an age-old prank: ring a neighbor’s doorbell, and flee earlier than they’ve time to reply.
The pair had efficiently tricked different neighborhood residents after they stumbled on a home on Mimbrough Street simply earlier than 11 p.m. The two-story dwelling towered over the cousins, however its spacious porch and home windows removed from the entrance door made it very best for ding-dong-ditching.
Julián reached for the doorbell, able to run.
After ringing the bell, the younger boys took off, making it at the least 20 toes away earlier than the suspect walked to the edge of his property and two photographs rang out — one discovering its mark in Julián’s again, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare informed NCS.
The preteen’s demise from his accidents at the hospital the subsequent day made him the newest, and one of the youngest, victims of lethal violence incited by the doorbell prank that’s been repopularized for a new generation by social media.
“They were doing what 11-year-old boys do, just playing pranks on neighbors,” Teare mentioned. “Tragically, it cost him his life.”
Child shot and killed whereas taking part in ‘ding dong ditch’
Here’s what we know.
A cousin dragged the boy’s mortally wounded physique after he was shot
Julián’s cousin informed police that he and Julián bought bored at a household birthday celebration and determined to play “ding dong ditch” at some neighborhood properties, a prison criticism says.
The two boys knocked on the doorways of a number of properties earlier than arriving at the dwelling of Gonzalo Leon Jr., the criticism says. At the time, Leon was at dwelling along with his spouse and toddler daughter, the court docket doc states.
The boys knocked on Leon’s door a number of instances and ran away. The cousin then “saw a male dressed in black exit the wooden gate attached” to the home, court docket data say.
The man shot as soon as “into the ground” after which “raised the pistol and shot once again in their direction,” the criticism says. Julián “collapsed to the ground, asking for help,” and cried out in ache that he had been shot.
The cousin informed police that as he returned to assist Julián, he needed to “Army” drag the wounded boy “because he believed that his legs were paralyzed.”
The cousin additionally informed police that the one that shot Julián “was standing next to the stop sign right in front of the house.” A detective confirmed, “there is a stop sign at the corner in front of the house.”
Julián died “while being treated for a gunshot wound to his back,” court docket paperwork state.
The shooting suspect, 42-year-old Leon, is a army veteran who was deployed to Afghanistan, Army spokesperson Christopher Surridge informed NCS.
Leon was an infantryman in the Army from August 2013 to December 2016 and served in the Texas National Guard from December 2016 to May 2021, in accordance with Surridge.
Leon was deployed to Afghanistan from November 2014 to April 2015 and left the Army with the rank of specialist, Surridge mentioned.
As Julián ran from Leon’s dwelling, he had no weapons, and there wasn’t any indication that he stole something, Teare mentioned. Despite this, investigators consider the suspect fired his gun twice, as soon as in an “intentional, measured way” that struck the boy.
The piercing pops from the firearm had been changed by a completely different type of cacophony. Officers used a blaring automobile PA system to demand the suspect come out of his dwelling, in accordance with court docket paperwork.
After about 20 minutes, Leon emerged and was detained by authorities, the prison criticism states.
Early the subsequent morning, officers introduced him again to the dwelling, handcuffed, NCS affiliate KTRK reported.
Leon was charged with Julián’s homicide Monday, the city of Houston announced Tuesday.
Teare, the district lawyer, informed NCS costs weren’t filed till authorities had possible trigger. “Once we got to a point, sometime on Sunday, that we believe that we had a good idea of what happened, that was when charges were filed.”
Prosecutors will pursue capital homicide costs for Leon, Teare informed NCS’s Laura Coates Wednesday night time, elevating the chance of the demise penalty.
“When we present this to a grand jury, we’re going to present it as a capital murder, which is what it turns out it is,” Teare mentioned.
Leon made an preliminary court docket look Tuesday and agreed to have a court-appointed lawyer.
On Wednesday, he appeared in an orange jail uniform earlier than Judge Emily DeToto, who set his bond at $1 million. Leon’s bond circumstances embrace dwelling confinement and digital monitoring.
Prosecutor John Brewer informed the choose that extra costs could possibly be filed.
During the investigation, Leon’s spouse gave consent for officers to enter the dwelling. There, they discovered about 20 weapons, together with AR-style rifles and handguns, Brewer mentioned.
But protection lawyer Gianpaolo Macerola mentioned Leon, a disabled Army veteran, “was merely exercising his constitutional (right) – one that he has fought for, for his country.”
Leon’s protection lawyer mentioned it was unclear whether or not his consumer was a US citizen. The choose mentioned his birthplace was listed as “YY” – an indicator of a nation not included in the National Crime Information Center’s listing of international locations.
With a suspect in custody, Teare mentioned investigators are “canvassing the entire neighborhood” for proof to construct a extra complete image of the night time that turned devastating for Julián’s household.
The boys left the household celebration a few streets over from the Mimbrough Street dwelling as a result of they “stopped wanting to hang out with the rest of the family and wanted to go be kids,” Teare mentioned.
Investigators are working to nail down which homes the boys visited earlier than Leon’s and the way lengthy Leon had been in the home earlier than the boys bought there, he mentioned.
Police don’t have something that reveals the incident “surveillance footage wise,” Teare mentioned, when requested by NCS if there was a doorbell digicam at the suspect’s home or surrounding properties that captured the shooting.
But he mentioned the investigation is ongoing.
“We are beating every bush, we’re turning over every rock,” Teare mentioned. “We’re going to exhaust every investigative effort.”
Witness statements, bodily proof from the scene and the post-mortem from the health worker all helped to tell Leon’s homicide cost, he mentioned, and will assist to slender the choices for protection at trial.
Many states have legal guidelines granting folks the proper to make use of power — even lethal power — in anyplace the place they’ve a authorized proper to be, like a dwelling, automobile or office.
Often known as a “Castle Doctrine” or “Stand Your Ground” laws, these laws in Texas decide a individual is justified in defending themselves, household and property if somebody unlawfully enters or tries to enter non-public premises.
In Texas, a state with “one of the strongest ‘stand your ground’ laws,” according to its governor, folks can use lethal power in the event that they consider it’s “immediately necessary” in opposition to one other individual’s use of lethal power, or to stop assault, theft and sure different crimes.
Prosecutors firmly deny that this sort of laws is related to Leon’s alleged actions Saturday night time.
“The castle doctrine does not apply in any way, shape or form to an 11-year-old boy running down the street,” Teare informed NCS. “There was no threat to the individual that shot him.”
While the legislation offers robust protections, circumstances depend upon particular info from every incident, and legislation enforcement or a jury can nonetheless scrutinize a suspect’s actions to find out if the use of power was justified.
Ding-dong-ditching has been round for generations, lengthy held as a mischievous and infantile prank. In the rise of brief video-driven social media, customers now typically go viral on platforms like TikTok after filming themselves in the act, eliciting upset responses from owners.
But its latest resurgence in reputation has left youngsters throughout the nation lifeless after they ring doorbells or pound on and kick entrance doorways.
In a Dallas suburb at the finish of July, a man fired photographs into a fleeing automotive after somebody banged on his door, according to police. The man was arrested on costs of aggravated assault.
In 2020, three 16-year-olds had been killed when a man rammed his automotive into their automobile in retaliation for pulling a ding-dong-ditch prank on him. The man was convicted of three counts of murder and sentenced to life in jail with out the chance of parole in 2023.
Authorities round the US have warned of the bodily risks and authorized penalties for youngsters who have interaction in the prank.
“Think it’s funny to bang on doors and run? Think again,” the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana wrote in a Facebook post in August. “What might seem like a prank can lead to serious legal trouble, property damage, or worse – someone getting hurt.”
“That’s a good way to end up dead, especially in Florida,” Sheriff Mike Chitwood of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office informed NCS affiliate WESH in July after arresting a 13-year-old woman and a 15-year-old boy for kicking a resident’s door one night time.
TikTok has not responded to NCS’s questions on when the firm first discovered “ding dong ditch” pranks had been resulting in bodily hurt or whether or not the platform has taken any motion to limit such posts.
NCS’s Ed Lavandera, Ashley Killough, Amanda Jackson, Karina Tsui and Alisha Ebrahimji contributed to this report.