Gross Negligence Cited in Boy Charged With Murder : Slaying: Suspect, 13, allegedly threatened group of classmates before shooting friend. Prosecutors’ action considered unusual, ‘but not that rare,’ official says.

Prosecutors say they took the unusual step this week of filing murder charges against a 13-year-old Inglewood boy because he showed gross negligence when he allegedly clicked a semiautomatic pistol and threatened a group of children even though he may not have intended to kill his 14-year-old friend.

The filing of a murder charge against a 13-year-old is unusual in Los Angeles County, although gang-related killings have brought the number of children under 14 charged with murder to about 15 a year, law-enforcement officials said.

Prosecutors face one additional hurdle in charging a child under 14 with a crime: They must prove that the minor knew that his or her conduct was wrong. Those 14 and older are presumed to know right from wrong.

John Spillane, a deputy district attorney at Eastlake Juvenile Hall, said prosecutors use a juvenile’s record and interviews with the defendant and family members to judge whether a defendant knew that his actions were wrong.

A murder charge against a youngster was once a rarity, said Spillane, who is not handling the Inglewood case, but “nowadays it’s not that rare.”

The Inglewood suspect, whose name was not released because of his age, allegedly brought the weapon, a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol, to Crozier Junior High School last Thursday, the day of the killing, and showed it to friends on the school playground, classmates said.

“When he pulled it out, my friend and I just ran away,” one boy said.

After school, the youth allegedly brandished the gun again before a small group of children outside an apartment complex near his home, police said. Witnesses said the suspect asked several of the children whether they thought it would hurt if he shot them.

Witnesses said one young girl in the group walked away, but Lydell Carr, a 14-year-old classmate, said he wasn’t afraid of the gun.

“He was trying to show off,” Lydell’s older brother, Tramaine Carr, said of the suspect. “Kids who were there told me that he clicked the gun twice. My little brother said he wasn’t afraid. That doesn’t mean he had to shoot him.”

Tramaine Carr said he was pleased by the news that the suspect in his brother’s death had been charged with murder. He said his 6-year-old sister does not understand what happened to Lydell and spent Tuesday, the day the suspect was arraigned, writing a letter to her brother in heaven.

Funeral services for Lydell Carr will be at 1 p.m. Friday at Southside Christian Place at 11243 S. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles. Burial will follow at Evergreen Cemetery, 204 N. Evergreen Ave., Los Angeles.

At Crozier Junior High School, where Lydell Carr and the suspect were enrolled, school officials said this week that they had no idea the suspect had a gun in his pocket as he roamed the campus the day of the killing.

Larry Silvers, the guidance counselor for both boys, described Lydell as “a very nice, likeable person” and the suspect as “a little bit defiant and aloof with an I-don’t-care attitude.”

“The whole thing is a shocker,” he said. The suspect “didn’t appear to be belligerent or hostile or anything.”