SAN FERNANDO VALLEY : 15-Year-Old Convicted of Slaying Fellow Student
A 15-year-old Panorama City boy was convicted Wednesday of fatally shooting another student at Reseda High School on Feb. 22 and of attempting to rob a second teen-ager about a block away from the school.
San Fernando Valley Juvenile Court Commissioner Jack Gold sustained the petition, which is the equivalent of finding a defendant guilty. Unlike adult criminal matters, there are no jury trials in Juvenile Court.
The teen-ager, whose name is being withheld because of his age, faces a maximum sentence of confinement in a California Youth Authority facility until his 25th birthday. He was not tried as an adult because under state law a juvenile must be at least 16 at the time the crime is committed.
The defendant and several of his schoolmates testified in the daylong trial that the teen-ager and the victim, Micheal Shean Ensley, 17, exchanged words prior to the shooting.
Witnesses testified that the two were from opposing “crews,” which one teen-ager on the stand described as neither taggers nor gang members, but admitted that crews also write on walls and retaliate if any member of their crew is attacked.
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