As a Mother Weeps, Gang Salutes Release of Youth

Maxine Coleman was angry. A gang member accused of murdering her 16-year-old daughter near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in June, 1986, was free Saturday--and his friends were rejoicing.

“It seems so unfair that he’s out on the streets walking around, and my daughter’s dead,” Coleman said.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Altman ruled Friday that a confession by Carlos (Pee Wee) Chavez, 19, could not be used in his trial. The confession, Altman said, was illegally obtained because Los Angeles police did not have “probable cause” to arrest Chavez the day Suzanne Coleman was shot with a rifle.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Pat Dixon told Altman that without the confession he could not continue the prosecution. The judge dismissed the case.

In the courtroom Friday, Maxine Coleman and her children Brent, 13, and Jodi, 12, who live in Fountain Valley, broke into tears.

But on the streets of South-Central Los Angeles, Chavez’s friends broke into cheers and gang salutes Saturday when they learned that Chavez, jailed since June 8, 1986, had been freed.

“They let Pee Wee go?” asked 18th Street Gang member Hector Martinez, 20, sitting on the doorsteps of a graffiti-covered three-story apartment building on Menlo Avenue, the gang hangout from where the shots that killed Coleman had been fired.

“I can’t believe it! Que bueno !” Martinez said.

Welcomed News

“When he got arrested, I was in camp, (prison) but since I got out he’d been calling me every day (from jail) until I got my phone disconnected Thursday.”

Fellow gang member Jorge Sambi, 19, interjected: “Yeah, haven’t you heard? The police (messed) up and the vato (dude) won. The other day he was telling me that the best he could hope for was four years.”

Martinez grinned. “Pee Wee e s bien chavalo (he’s got guts). He does crazy things, but they never catch him. I gotta talk to him.”

Chavez, who was released from jail Friday after 19 months behind bars, could not be reached for comment.

Coleman was shot to death June 8, 1986, after attending the Super Bowl of Motocross at the Coliseum with Christopher Barth, her high school boyfriend. They had parked on a nearby street because they had found the Coliseum lots full, police said.

Leaving the Coliseum after midnight, Barth said later, the couple could not remember where they had parked. For two hours, with the help of Robert Burgos, a Coliseum parking attendant who lived nearby, they searched the area.

Victim of Holdup

Just as they found the car, a woman and man with a knife approached them. The pair took Coleman’s purse and ran, police said.

After phoning the police from a nearby doughnut shop and waiting briefly, Barth said, Burgos went into an apartment building alley and began arguing with a man on the roof. Barth and Coleman followed him in.

A shot rang out. Burgos, Barth and Coleman ran from the alley. A second shot hit Coleman in the head. She died in a hospital three hours later.

Later that day, Chavez, a 16-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy were arrested. Chavez confessed to the shooting after 12 hours of questioning by police.

At Friday’s hearing, Altman faulted the way police had arrested and questioned Chavez. He said testimony had shown that police had rounded up Chavez and some of his friends simply because they were members of the 18th Street Gang that hung out at the building from which the fatal shot was fired.

Based on Suspicion

Altman said he was reluctant to dismiss the case against Chavez, but that under the law he was required to do so because the police arrested Chavez on a mere suspicion of wrongdoing. The police should have had probable cause that he had committed the shooting, Altman said.

LAPD spokesman Cmdr. William Booth declined Saturday to talk about how police handled the case, but prosecutor Dixon said dismissal of the charges against Chavez may be appealed.

In August, 1986, the 16-year-old girl arrested with Chavez pleaded guilty to robbery in Compton Juvenile Court. Murder charges against her were dismissed. She was sentenced to the California Youth Authority for up to five years.

The 14-year-old boy was convicted by a Juvenile Court judge of robbery and of Coleman’s murder. Dixon said he is now serving time with the California Youth Authority.

On Saturday, Maxine Coleman said she felt helpless. “There’s nothing I can do. . . . I will leave it with the courts and keep in contact with the district attorney to make sure he brings this man to justice.”