D.A. Considers Possible Charges in Boy’s Suicide : Shooting: The 10-year-old killed himself in a schoolyard with a pistol belonging to his father. Prosecutors are analyzing whether the parent can be charged because the weapon was accessible to a minor.

The district attorney’s office is deciding whether to file charges against the father of the 10-year-old boy who shot himself to death in a South-Central Los Angeles schoolyard after being suspended from class for misbehavior, police said Friday.

The .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol that Jorge Lisea Jr. used to wound himself fatally belonged to his father, Jorge Lisea Sr., according to detectives.

Police say the boy had found the weapon hidden beneath a mattress, then loaded it with ammunition that was stored separately, on the top shelf of a bedroom dresser.

Under the Children’s Firearms Protection Act, which took effect in 1992, an adult can face up to three years in state prison and a $10,000 fine for keeping a loaded weapon that is accessible to a minor.

“The district attorney’s office is taking a look at that, and analyzing the case, to see if there is enough there to press charges,” said Detective John Garcia of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Newton Street station. “They won’t have an answer until sometime next week.”

Garcia said the father has told police that he was investigated by the LAPD four or five years ago for possibly abusing the boy.

“I don’t think it had any relevance in this case,” the detective said. “He didn’t beat the child; it was more of a one-strike type of thing.”

The detective said he has not yet determined whether there was a child abuse investigation, or what its outcome might have been.

Garcia said he does not believe that the child was driven to suicide by fear of punishment from his father.

Garcia said a teacher at the 49th Street Elementary School suspended the boy on Tuesday, reportedly for using profane language in a fifth-grade class.

Principal Lemuel Chavis said the boy was sent home with a note that asked his parents to come with him to school on Wednesday to discuss the problem. Garcia said the father told him the boy never mentioned the incident or showed him the note.

Police say the boy apparently stashed the pistol in his backpack before his father drove him to school Wednesday morning.

About 7:30 a.m., as his fellow students filed past him at the front door of the school, the sobbing boy pulled out the pistol, pressed it to his temple and pulled the trigger, according to witnesses.

Despite more than four hours of surgery at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, the boy never regained consciousness. On Thursday afternoon, moments after he was removed from life-support systems, he died.

“Why do I think he did it?” Garcia asked. “I’ve spoken to the teacher briefly, and I think the boy was upset about being suspended. . . . That was his behavior when he got in trouble, he’d go home crying, upset. . . .

“I’ve talked to his father, his mother, his older brother, they’re all telling me the same thing,” Garcia said. “They don’t understand why. If anything, they’re blaming the pressure school puts on a child.”

Chavis, the school principal, said Wednesday it was difficult for him to believe that the note from the school was sufficient to create the sort of anxiety that would lead to suicide, “unless there was something else bothering him in his personal life or home life.”

Pete Navarro, a lawyer representing the family, reacted strongly Friday to Chavis’ statement.

“The school is solely concerned about liability,” Navarro said. “They are least concerned about the truth. They are least concerned about the grieving process that this family is going through. (Those are) nothing but speculations on their part that (there are) problems going on at home.”