The terrible consequences of letting kids run wild in the streets have come to the forefront after a Chapala teenager was shot dead last week in the heat of a brawl on the city’s main avenue. City officials and local residents are now grappling with ways to finally quell the untamed violence that has plagued the community for many years.
Medical personnel at the Chapala Red Cross pronounced Ricardo “Samito” Lopez Rodriguez, 17, dead from a single gunshot wound to the upper torso. He suffered the fatal injury around 1:30 a.m. Friday, October 4, shortly after local police arrived at the scene to break up a confrontation between rival street gangs from the San Miguel and Guadalupe barrios.
The bloody incident spawned a protest march to city hall early Monday morning, with the dead boy’s family and neighbors calling for justice or vengeance, pointing blame for the shooting at the Chapala police force. As demonstrators remained outside displaying hand-lettered signs and banners, Mayor Joaquin Huerta ushered grieving family members into his office for a private audience. After listening to their outrage and concerns, the mayor pledged to allow justice to take its due course, repeatedly insisting that state authorities are responsible for impartially investigating and prosecuting the case. He then turned to the thrust of his position, underscoring that the community must lock arms with government to address issues of the social disintegration, lax parental supervision, unemployment and poverty that lie at the root of street gang rivalry.T
he dead youth was raised by his grandparents, aunts and uncles after being orphaned in infancy when his parents died in a traffic accident. According to police chief Ramon del Arco and municipal judge Roberto Perez Vargas, he had an extensive record of petty crime going back at least three years.
Meanwhile, officials at the Ministerio Publico (district attorney’s office) are still processing the case, telling the Reporter that police officers involved in the fray have given their statements and undergone a battery of forensic tests on themselves and their weapons. Test results are still pending, but examination of the corpse and other initial evidence indicate that the fatal shot may have originated from the hillside above the scene of the fight, not from Avenida Madero where officers admit to firing off a few rounds into the air in response to gunfire aimed in their direction. Eye witnesses have apparently been reluctant to provide testimony.