Father Claims Son’s Friend Was Fatally Shot at Close Range

The father of a boy whose friend was shot and killed while the two youths were fleeing the scene of an auto parts theft in Costa Mesa said Friday that the fatal shotgun blast was fired at a range of about four feet as the boys’ car was pulling away.

“The man fired through the window, and the other boy fell over with his head bleeding into the center section of my son’s lap,” said Gilbert Martinez, recounting his 16-year-old son’s account of the shooting that occurred shortly after midnight Wednesday.

Detectives and prosecutors have refused to discuss many aspects of the shooting, including the identity of the man who allegedly saw the two youths trying to steal tires and wheels off a Porsche outside Holtz VW Repair and fired a shotgun at them.

“My son had to wear clothes with his friend’s blood all over them for several more hours,” Martinez said. “It was really traumatic and . . . I think this was cold-blooded murder over hubcaps.”

Thomas Martinez, who was released from Juvenile Hall about 12 hours after the shooting, was in his family’s Costa Mesa home as his father spoke Friday but was “too upset” to talk, his father said.

Gilbert Martinez said authorities told his son, who has been charged with attempted theft, that he also could be charged with manslaughter in the death of David Gallardo, 15, of Costa Mesa.

“I know nothing about that,” said Costa Mesa Police Lt. Rick Johnson of the manslaughter possibility. He said the district attorney’s office--to which the case has been referred by police--would make that decision.

Richard M. King, the deputy district attorney handling the shooting case, did not return phone calls Friday.

Domenic Cascio, owner of Domenic’s Pizza Parlor in Costa Mesa, where David Gallardo worked, said the boy told him Monday night that he was quitting because he had gotten a job working nights and weekends at Holtz VW Repair. Cascio said the boy told him that his stepfather got him the job.

“We really liked David,” Cascio said Friday night, “and I told him I’d match whatever they were going to pay him--$4.50 an hour--but he said, ‘No, this is a good chance for me to fix up my car.’ Then I pick up the paper and find out he’s been killed at Holtz VW Repair. We don’t believe he (was stealing), but even if he was, it was a childish thing. And maybe he had a reason to be there. Still, it was just car parts and someone blew his head off for it.”

The manager of the repair shop, who refused to identify himself, said earlier Friday that Gallardo was never a customer of the shop.

Police said lug nuts from a white Porsche parked outside the repair shop, as well as a floor jack and blocks of wood, were found during a search of the blue Volkswagen that Gallardo was driving the night he was killed. They said no weapon was found in the car and that neither Gallardo nor Martinez was armed.

The man who shot Gallardo, described by police as in his early 30s, fired once, striking the youth in the head as he tried to pull his car away from the shop on West 20th Street. Gallardo, a sophomore at Estancia High School, died at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach.

Man Not Detained

Police said they have not detained the man because they believe that he will stay in the area while they investigate the case.

Gilbert Martinez said he doesn’t understand why the man was not arrested.

“It’s one thing if your life is threatened, and someone is confronting you,” Martinez said. “But when someone’s chasing you, you are running, and they point a gun at your car window and blow a kid’s head away--over hubcaps--that’s just not right.”

Speaking a few hours after a Juvenile Court hearing at which his son was formally charged, Martinez said the youth will need psychological counseling to recover from the incident.

Martinez said he drove his son to a health club about 6 p.m. Tuesday and told him he would have to walk home because the family’s truck was loaded up with debris. Martinez said his son ran into Gallardo later in the evening and they stopped by the pizza parlor where Gallardo worked. The boys also visited Gilbert Martinez’s sister, he said.

Son ‘Kept a Lookout’

Later, the father said, the boys “were walking by this place (the repair shop) and saw the Porsche.” Thomas Martinez was “keeping a lookout,” his father said, as the other boy kneeled down at the wheels. He said that didn’t make his son any less culpable.

“As the other boy was down by the car, they heard a man . . . shout ‘halt’ or ‘stop,’ and they got up and ran to the car,” Martinez said. “I think they had like three lug nuts with them. They got in the car and moved a few feet when this man runs up to them. He didn’t say anything. He just shot this gun from a few feet--maybe three or four--through the window.”

Thomas Martinez, fearing that the man was going to kill him, too, jumped out of the car, his father said. The man ordered his son “into a house, where this woman was there in her robe,” and the police were summoned, he said.

Martinez said he got a call about 5 a.m. Wednesday from a detective who told him that his son was going to be taken to Juvenile Hall. The detective, whose name he couldn’t recall, did not tell him why his son was being held or that Gallardo was dead. “Somebody will call you later,” Martinez recalled the detective told him.

‘He Was a Wreck’

After speaking to his son over the phone, Martinez and his wife, Judy, picked up the boy about noon Wednesday. “He was really a wreck. He said detectives--a detective and he thinks someone from the district attorney’s office--told him he might be charged with manslaughter,” the father said, his voice rising. “That just doesn’t seem right. Not over hubcaps. He never had a gun.”

Thomas Martinez, who was transferred last February from Estancia to a continuation program at Back Bay High School but has not attended school since last spring, is scheduled to appear at a pretrial hearing next Friday in Juvenile Court. His father, a disabled maintenance worker at UCI Medical Center, said the family is hoping to know more about the shooting from authorities by then.

A spokesman at Harbor Lawn Memorial Chapel in Costa Mesa said a rosary will be said for Gallardo at the chapel at 6:45 p.m. Sunday, and a funeral Mass will be held at noon Monday at St. John the Baptist Church in Costa Mesa. Burial will follow at Harbor Lawn Memorial Park.

On Friday, Estancia High School students, many of them dressed in Halloween costumes, paid tribute to the slain youth. Before classes started, the student body president made an announcement over the public address system, calling for “a moment of silence for David Gallardo,” school principal Robert Francy said.