Boy Playing With Gun Fatally Shoots Self : Death: Youth was showing grandfather’s handgun to two girls. Friends say he had been taught to handle weapons.

Alex Gardeazabal, 14, had been taught by his grandfather how to properly handle a gun, say his friends.

But for some reason, he did not check his grandfather’s new .38 before showing it off to two teen-age girls Monday evening in the trailer home where he lived with his grandparents.

He was just fooling around, according to statements given to police, pretending to play Russian roulette when he pointed the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

Alex died almost instantly when the bullet he didn’t know was there blasted into his head.

“He knew better,” said Mike Hogan, 52, a close friend of the Gardeazabals, who sat on the porch of their mobile home at Hacienda Mobile Estates. “I know he knew better.”

Hogan said that he and Alex’s grandfather, Fred Gardeazabal, had on numerous occasions taken the teen-ager to a local private shooting range to not only show him how to shoot, but also how to safely handle a gun.

“He was very well disciplined about firearms,” Hogan said. “He knew to make sure that a gun was not loaded before he moved it.”

The grandparents were being comforted by friends on Tuesday and did not want to comment on the shooting. Sheriff’s deputies, who are investigating, would say little about the incident, except to confirm that Alex was apparently demonstrating to the two girls, one of whom was his girlfriend, how to play Russian roulette. He had gotten the gun from the his grandfather’s safe.

“He believed the gun was empty at the time and that’s all the department is saying now,” said Deputy Benita Nichol.

Hogan said Alex had lived with his grandparents since he was a baby and treated them as if they were his mother and father.

“They’d always be doing things together,” Hogan said of Alex and his grandfather, “running around, getting sporting goods, going to the swap meet.” And Alex, Hogan said, was always eager to help his grandmother with grocery shopping.

“I tried to see Alex before they took him away,” said Hogan, who arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting. “But the officer said it wasn’t a good idea. I wanted to see Alex for his [grandfather’s] sake. He really was more than just their son.”

“He was very well liked,” Hogan said. “Made friends easy. When it happened, the neighbors came in tears.”

“He was a nice kid,” said Diana Lockheart, 36, who lives a couple of spaces from the Gardeazabals. “He never passed by without saying ‘hi’ or giving me a hug.”

Lockheart’s daughter, Myesha, 9, added that Alex had always been nice to her. “I saw him yesterday [Monday] morning, before he died,” she said sadly. “We’d talk when he saw me.”