Tragic Combination: Girls, Boy With a Gun

To a 12-year-old boy, flashing a loaded handgun was the ultimate in cool.

Juan Manuel Cardenas wanted to impress the girls, show them that he was worth noticing. Then he shot Jacalyn Calabrese dead, in front of her friends, at the Mall of Orange on Monday. It was a single shot to the forehead.

Prosecutors say it was an accident. Involuntary manslaughter is the legal term. Juan’s public defender says his client is on a suicide watch at Juvenile Hall.

“He knows what he did,” says the public defender. “He knows he’s responsible. At least he’s struggling with that right now.”

What that means, presumably, is that Juan Manuel Cardenas has a conscience, that he is not one of those gang bangers who shoot for sport, maim for macho.

His friends say that Juan knows the difference between right and wrong, that he’s sensitive, a soft touch. But he wanted an edge, the bad-guy cachet that a handgun can sometimes magically bestow.

It seems that Juan did not quite believe it all himself.

This column would be much easier to write if it were not so, if Juan were already lost, another blip on an official report. That way he would not remind me of so many other kids, my next-door neighbors, or maybe the boy my nephew will grow to be.

Juan is the oldest of three children. He and his family, working class, close knit, live in a small apartment in Orange, a few blocks from the Calabreses. He had known Jacalyn since fourth grade. He wanted her approval; perhaps, say his friends, her love.

“He is a good person,” says Juan’s mother, Maria Cardenas, her voice clipped with pain.

I called Maria Cardenas at home a few hours after she had seen her son, in handcuffs, during the court hearing Wednesday where he was ordered held without bail. She kissed him, sobbed over him, while her husband slung an arm over his shoulder.

But a bailiff soon separated them. They were not allowed to touch.

When I called Maria Cardenas, invading her privacy and churning her despair, I suppose I was looking for clues, which, of course, I did not find.

Al Calabrese, Jacalyn’s father, says he has forgiven the Cardenases’ son. But he cannot absolve the culture that spawned her death.

“How do you punish stupidity?” he asked reporters. “I don’t want to see this happen to someone else, and damn, I know it’s going to.”

Al Calabrese is right because, really, there was nothing extraordinary about this killing. It just happened closer this time, in a very public place: a seventh-grader playing with a gun, showing off to his friends.

A tough-guy gunslinger is an image so cliched that even Jacalyn, apparently, did not believe it was for real.

“Come on, Juan, shoot me,” one of Jacalyn’s friends heard her say.

Juan’s mother says that her son really likes baseball. He played on the all-star team. Especially during baseball season, she says, the family is almost always together. All their spare time goes toward the kids.

This Christmas, the Cardenas family was planning to visit the children’s grandparents in Chihuahua, the city in northern Mexico where Juan’s father was born.

“I’m so worried about him,” his mother says of her son. “I pray to God that he is all right.”

Maria Cardenas cannot express the hurt that chokes her words and flattens her tone of voice. What’s left is outlined in tears.

Finally, I ask if there is anything else that she would like to say.

“What Juan said,” she says, so softly that I can barely hear, “is that he wants everybody to know just not to get near guns.”

Dianne Klein is a Times Orange County Edition columnist. Readers may reach Klein by writing to her at The Times, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7406.