Wounded Youth Tells of Shooting in Chatsworth

Just before he was shot three times at Chatsworth High School in December, he tried to slap the pistol out of another teen-ager’s hand because it didn’t look real, a 17-year-old shooting victim testified Thursday at the trial of the alleged triggerman.

“I thought it was a toy,” Gabriel Gettleson said calmly during the first day of the trial in San Fernando Valley Juvenile Court in Sylmar. “I was thinking it was like this is a joke, get it out of my face.”

Gettleson--who underwent two operations to remove three .22-caliber bullets from his chest, shoulder and hip and was hospitalized for nearly three weeks--said he failed to knock the gun from the other teen-ager’s hand.

The youth, who was trying to steal Gettleson’s backpack, then pointed the gun at Gettleson again.

“I looked at him and he smiled,” Gettleson said.

“I was shot after that.”

Although the trial was later continued to April 27 because defense witnesses are unavailable until then, Thursday’s half-day proceedings provided the first detailed account of the Dec. 15 shooting in front of Chatsworth High School.

Los Angeles Police Detective Kenneth Crocker testified that a 15-year-old Sylmar boy--the defendant in this trial--confessed to the shooting and to robbing another teen-ager earlier in the day in front of Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley.

Crocker said the defendant told police at the Devonshire Division police station after his arrest that he and other youths had piled into two cars that day looking for members of a rival “tagging crew”--a group of youths who spray-paint graffiti together.

When they found none, Crocker testified, the defendant said he suggested to the others: “Let’s just start taxing fools.”

Crocker said he asked the defendant if that meant they were going to rob people, and the teen-ager said yes.

Another teen-age witness testified that he was robbed of his coat that morning in front of Polytechnic High School by two teen-agers, but he could not identify the 15-year-old defendant as one of them.

“I can’t really tell because it happened so fast,” said the boy, who appeared nervous. He did testify, however, that the robbers got into vehicles that matched the description of those seen leaving the scene after Gettleson was shot later that day at Chatsworth High.

Another boy testified that he was sitting in front of Chatsworth High the day of the shooting, on the same bench where Gettleson was sitting, when two teen-agers approached him and grabbed his backpack. He, too, was unable to identify the 15-year-old defendant, but said he saw the same person who had robbed him then approach Gettleson.

Gettleson, however, did identify the juvenile defendant as the person who tried to take his backpack. Gettleson said that when the defendant grabbed the bag, which was next to him on the bench, Gettleson grabbed it back. The youth grabbed it a second time and, again, Gettleson took it back.

A 17-year-old, who was later arrested as an alleged accomplice in the crime, then hit Gettleson in the chest with the backpack, Gettleson testified.

Gettleson paused. “I was a little scared,” he admitted.

Gettleson said the 15-year-old then pulled out a gun hidden in his sleeve and, when Gettleson tried to slap it away, the youth shot him three times.

Deputy Public Defender Albert M. Meister asked Gettleson if he actually saw the teen-ager who pulled the trigger.

“I saw who shot me,” Gettleson said unflinchingly.

Meister suggested in cross-examining Crocker that his young client did not intend to shoot or kill Gettleson.

Meister asked Crocker if the defendant had told him that he did not shoot Gettleson until Gettleson tried to grab the gun. Crocker said yes.

But when Meister asked the detective if the teen-ager had told him that he was in a trance during the incident and feared that Gettleson would grab the gun and turn it on him, Crocker said no.

In January, a 17-year-old from Burbank who admitted driving the getaway car was sentenced to a youth camp after being found guilty in Juvenile Court of being an accomplice to the shooting.