Trial Ordered in Shooting of Teen-Ager

Speaking softly from his wheelchair, a 14-year-old boy recalled in court Thursday how he was left paralyzed after an angry neighbor burst into his Ventura Keys home in January, pulled a handgun and shot him in the back.

After hearing the dramatic testimony, Ventura County Municipal Judge James P. Cloninger ordered 21-year-old defendant Brian Adams to stand trial for the shooting.

An arraignment for Adams on charges of attempted premeditated murder and burglary was set for Sept. 1.

The victim, Kevin Natale, spent six months in the hospital after the shooting and now has no use of his legs, hands or left arm.

Speaking into a microphone clipped to his T-shirt, Kevin recalled playing video games with his teen-age friend Sean Wilcox in his living room when he heard a rap on the front door in the early evening hours of Jan. 12.

Sean went to answer the door, but Adams charged in first and tackled Sean, according to testimony, then pulled from his waistband a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol and fired at Kevin in the living room, according to testimony.

When he saw the gun, Kevin said he headed for the back door, but was hit in the spine by a bullet. “I heard a shot, and I went down,” he told the silent courtroom, where about a dozen family and friends listened.

Before Kevin could testify, Adams’ lawyer had asked the court to postpone the hearing because Adams tried to commit suicide in jail Tuesday. Defense lawyer George C. Eskin said he ingested about two weeks worth of anti-depressant pills that he had been hoarding in his cell.

Municipal Judge Herbert Curtis III, who heard the request to delay the hearing, refused, although a psychologist testified Adams needed time to recover from depression related to the suicide attempt.

Adams previously had been treated at Patton State Hospital, where he was determined to be mentally competent to stand trial.

In addition to Kevin’s comments, Judge Cloninger heard testimony from Sean and Ventura Police Detective Pat Stevens. Sean described how Adams burst through the front door, knocked him down and shot Kevin.

“He pushed me down into a corner, put his hand over my mouth and pulled a gun out,” Sean said. He said Adams was wearing latex gloves.

The detective said that shortly after the shooting, Adams called police from a phone booth about 1 1/2 miles away to give himself up. Police found a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun at the phone booth. Adams had purchased the gun four days before the shooting from Shooters Paradise in Oxnard, he said.

Stevens, however, said Adams told police he never entered the Natale house. He said Adams admitted shooting Kevin, but only after he heard a noise outside the house and saw the boy charging him.

But in his testimony, Kevin said Adams seemed to hold a grudge against him ever since the Natale family moved to Dolphin Court three years before the shooting.

While he occasionally played with Adams’ younger brother, Kevin said the only thing Adams had ever said to him during those three years was to stay off his family’s property.

Kevin, who was involved in organized baseball, soccer and basketball, said Adams would get irritated when Kevin played ball in the street. The Natale and Adams families live across the street from one another.

Kevin testified that things between his family and Adams’ heated up in April, 1993. That was when Adams attacked Kevin’s stepfather after a tennis ball thrown by Kevin hit Adams’ car.

The stepfather was attacked when he went to retrieve the ball, Kevin said. He testified that the only way he could get Adams to stop hitting his stepfather was to hit Adams once with an aluminum baseball bat.

Adams chased Kevin, but never caught him after being struck in the thigh by the bat. That same night, however, the tires on his stepfather’s car were slashed, Kevin said.

After that incident, Kevin said he tried to stay clear of Adams.

In the seven months between the flare-up and the shooting, Kevin said he had no major problems with Adams. And he said he was surprised to see the defendant burst through his door.

Earlier Thursday, Ventura clinical psychologist Katherine Emerick testified that Adams had told her “he had to do something to stop the bad feelings” between he and Kevin.

Emerick also testified that Adams told her why he wore gloves when he charged through the Natale family’s front door Jan. 12.

“If you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger, you want to go in with all your equipment,” Adams said, according to Emerick.