Boy Shot to Death at ‘Rock House’; Teen-Ager Held

An 11-year-old boy who worked in a South-Central Los Angeles “rock house” was shot and killed by a teen-ager who also was employed there when the two got into an argument after the younger boy apparently waved a handgun at a customer, police said Friday.

Stefan Fletcher was killed by a single shot in the head. A 16-year-old boy, whose name was not released, was booked on suspicion of murder.

The two were arguing because the older boy apparently thought it was “poor business technique” to threaten a customer with a gun, Newton Division Lt. William Hall said Friday.

Hall said the shooting occurred about 4:45 p.m. Thursday after a customer entered the house in the 3800 block of South Wall Street, where rock cocaine was being sold. The drug operation had apparently just opened in the neighborhood, the lieutenant said.

“It seems to be fairly new,” Hall said. “It’s not as heavily barricaded as most of them.”

The customer made his purchase of cocaine from Stefan--who “hung out there and helped with the sales”--and stayed around, asking questions about the house’s hours and availability of drugs, Hall said.

“The 11-year-old didn’t like that, so he waved a gun and pointed it at the guy,” he said.

The teen-age employee intervened, apparently because he “thought it a poor business technique for a new operation,” the lieutenant said.

The customer left and somehow the 16-year-old got the gun, Hall said. The argument continued and the older boy fired one shot from the .38-caliber revolver into the wall, he said.

Stefan was unimpressed, saying, “You’re not going to do anything to me,” according to the older youth’s account to detectives later.

The suspect then shot the boy in the head, Hall said.

The owner of the rock house operation quickly returned and, along with friends, took the gun, the money and the drug supply, Hall said.

Police, alerted by a passer-by who noticed the front door open and Stefan’s body on the floor, arrived about 15 minutes after the shooting and tracked down the owner, whose name they did not immediately release, and the young suspect. They also found the revolver. It had been wrapped in a pillow case and tossed into a nearby sewer.

Hall said the rock house and its owner remain under investigation, while the suspect is in custody of juvenile authorities.

Stefan’s grandmother, Evelyn Way, who lives a few blocks down Wall Street from the rock house, said Friday that she had no idea that the boy was dealing drugs there.

In fact, she said, Stefan had just filled out an application for a job as a handyman at a nearby city park.

Just a few weeks ago, Way said, her son, Kyle Way, 17, had brought the boy home “to get him out of the streets.”

“I always had a place for him to put his head down,” she said.

Louise Smith, the boy’s great-aunt, said Stefan also spent considerable time at her home in the Westlake area. She said that the boy’s mother was on welfare and that other relatives believed that she often smoked rock cocaine.

“She was as high as she could get sometimes,” Smith said, adding, “she was real high last night (Thursday night) until she heard about this.”

Smith said she had a May 22 court date to attempt to gain custody of Stefan.

“They were supposed to turn him over to me on May 2 . . . and he cried when they didn’t,” Smith said.