Man Guilty in Slaying of Boy, 16 : Courts: Chatsworth resident, 24, is convicted of second-degree murder. He shot at group that smashed his car at his home.

Amid heated debate over vigilante justice, self-defense and the shooting death last week of a teen-age tagger, a San Fernando Superior Court jury Thursday convicted a Chatsworth man of second-degree murder for killing a 16-year-old when he shot at fleeing vandals.

Scott Howard Breverman, 24, had claimed he fired in self-defense on Dec. 19, 1993, when the teen-agers retaliated for a fight the previous night by smashing his BMW, parked 10 feet from his front door, with bats and clubs.

Breverman told police he thought they were trying to get into his house.

“It looks like they’re rushing the door, so I break the front window with my hand with the gun and I just start shooting out,” Breverman said in a taped police statement that was played to the jury.

“And then they were like, kept going, and I shot out and they kept going and I shot out again,” Breverman said. “I was trying to get them to stop and I’m just shooting, shooting, shooting. . . .”

According to testimony, Breverman fired two volleys of shots from his Glock 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol--four rounds from the broken window, and at least another seven shots from his driveway. One of the bullets struck 16-year-old Andreas Suryaatmadjian, a student at Chatsworth High School, in the back of the head from 165 feet away.

“Scott Breverman that night tried and convicted those people of a crime he thought they’d done,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Janice Maurizi told the jury. She added that Breverman’s true motive for shooting was to avenge the vandalism to his BMW and hold the youths until police arrived so they’d be forced to pay for the damage.

The jury deliberated a day before returning the verdict, convicting Breverman of the most severe crime charged. Had jurors found Breverman acted in self-defense, they could have acquitted him. Had they found he acted out of an honest but unreasonable fear, they could have returned a manslaughter verdict.

Breverman faces a term of 17 years to life in state prison when Judge Charles J. Peven sentences him March 6.

Breverman dropped his head into his hands as rasping sobs shook his shoulders. Several jurors also began to weep. As they left the courtroom, the jurors, some still visibly upset, refused to talk about the case.

“It doesn’t seem fair,” said Breverman’s mother, Janet, noting that William Masters II, who fatally shot a tagger last week while walking late at night, is free while her son is in jail.

In that case, prosecutors declined to file charges, saying Masters reasonably feared he was in great danger when he opened fire on two taggers he said menaced him with a screwdriver and tried to rob him. Masters’ action drew widespread public praise.

“My client is facing 17 years to life in prison while Bill Masters is out there walking the streets,” defense attorney Donald J. Calabria said. “This vigilante can kill a tagger and not be prosecuted, while a young boy can be on his own property, retreat twice from a gang of hoodlums, and be tried for murder.”

“I feel kind of strongly on this case,” Calabria said. “To be attacked in your own home and face 20 years in prison? It isn’t fair.”

Prosecutor Maurizi said the evidence showed Breverman, while probably fearful, did not kill in self-defense, although the first few shots could be justified.

The crucial difference in this case, Maurizi said, was the fact the teen-agers already were running down the street when Breverman stepped out of his house and resumed firing.

And, she said, his true motive emerged when he spoke to police.

Questioned by Detective Tony Foti, Breverman said, “I was just firing at them, trying to get them to stop. . . . I was going to try and like hold them there until the cops came, ‘cause, you know, my mom already had called them.”

Jurors also heard a tape of Janet Breverman’s 911 call, made as she crawled along the floor of the house.

“I had people attempting to break into my house and, and shots have been fired,” she told a police operator. “My, my, my son. . . . They were attempting to break in and there (were) shots fired, and I believe one of them may have been shot.”

On the witness stand, she admitted she may have embellished details to bring police to her Hiawatha Street home more quickly.

“I felt like we were under siege,” she said. “I thought they were breaking in.”