Youth, 15, Who Killed Classmate for Wearing Gang Jersey, Sent to Prison

A computer analyst’s 15-year-old son, who shot to death a junior high school classmate for wearing a jersey carrying the name of a rival gang, was sentenced in an Eastlake Juvenile courtroom Friday to 17 years to life imprisonment.

Because the youth is a minor, he will be set free at the age of 25. The youth could be released even sooner, if he is paroled before he reaches 25, said attorneys involved in the case.

The convicted youth, whose name was withheld by authorities because of his age, confessed to shooting 14-year-old Mark Iwashita at point-blank range on August 8. The shooting took place the day after Iwashita wore an “Atwater-13” jersey to Washington Irving Junior High School in Glassell Park.

The Glassell Park youth told investigators that he shot Iwashita “so that other kids won’t join Atwater,” deputy Dist. Atty. Barry Bradley said during the sentencing hearing.

While the convicted youth’s father, who works for IBM, and his mother and older brother stood by, Judge Jaime Corral pronounced sentence. The judge told the teenaged suspect that he was “fortunate that your parents are more stable than most families that come to this court. Because of your age and the support of your family, there is hope for you.”

Defense attorney Tom Fogelman had asked Corral to send the youth to a county juvenile facility commonly known as “camp,” a county detention facility where offenders typically spend less than three years before being released.

Fogelman argued that the confessed killer had been a model student and family member until joining a gang a year ago.

“This is a tragedy with two victims,” Fogelman said. The convicted youth, he said, “had a good personality and a good family. Suddenly the tattoos, suddenly he loses control of his life. It happened so fast the family didn’t see what was going on.

“They were naive,” Fogelman said. “But I think he’s got potential. I hope he gets out.”

Bradley asked the judge to send the youth to the California Youth Authority, the state agency in charge of dealing with youths who comit serious crimes. Bradley said the shooting of Iwashita--lured five blocks away from the school campus to an isolated area where he was executed under a railroad bridge--would call for a death sentence if the suspect was an adult.

“If he were an adult, I’d ask for special circumstances,” Bradley told the court. Death penalties for convicted murderers can be brought on evidence of “special circumstances” when the crime is proven to be abhorrent to society.

Corral followed Bradley’s recommendation, sending the teenaged suspect to the state Youth Authority.

“You are going to the CYA and you are going to stay there a long time,” Corral told the youth, who remained quiet throughout the hearing, never even facing his family. “I hope you realize what you have done not only to the victim’s family, but to your own family as well.”