13-Year-Old Charged With Manslaughter in Cousin’s Shooting : Slaying: Garden Grove police had sought murder charges against the Santa Ana boy, but prosecutors say his act was unintentional.

Prosecutors filed involuntary manslaughter charges Wednesday against a 13-year-old boy accused of shooting his 14-year-old cousin in the head while showing off a semiautomatic handgun.

Garden Grove police initially sought murder charges against the Santa Ana boy, but prosecutors said they decided on a lesser charge because the killing was not intentional.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Deborah Lloyd also cited the boy’s age, his lack of a previous criminal record and the circumstances surrounding the shooting.

“The case that was brought to us led us to believe that involuntary manslaughter was the crime that this juvenile committed,” Lloyd said.

The Santa Ana boy allegedly shot and killed his cousin, James Valentine, 14, when the two were playing with other teen-agers Monday in a boarded-up apartment duplex in Garden Grove.

Joan Vink, the mother of the slain boy, sighed with sympathy when she heard news of the charges.

“I feel really sad for him,” Vink said of her nephew. “I feel like he’s as much a loser here as the rest of us. He’s had a really neglectful childhood.”

The 13-year-old suspect, whose name is being withheld because of his age, faces a detention hearing today at Juvenile Court.

If a judge finds the youth guilty, he faces a possible sentence ranging from probation to a maximum of four years in the California Youth Authority, Lloyd said.

Police said the youth aimed the handgun at the victim’s head after Valentine jokingly questioned whether the gun was loaded.

Garden Grove Lt. James Woods said detectives initially sought murder charges because preliminary evidence placed the killing somewhere between a homicide and an accident.

“What happens in law enforcement is that you tend to file the most significant charge that you can, realizing that the circumstance may change and that other factors may come up, possibly resulting in a lesser charge filed,” Woods said.

“The arrest is made early in the investigation. In many cases, we don’t have all the information that we ultimately will obtain, which can at times significantly alter our feelings of the case.”

He said police officials are satisfied with the charges.

Those close to the suspect described him as a quiet boy who comes from a troubled, financially strained home. The parents went through a bitter divorce, leaving the youth shuffling between households.

Police officials said the youth had been flashing the semiautomatic weapon weeks before the shooting.

The gun “was pretty well seen among youths,” Police Detective Mike Handfield said earlier this week.

The suspect--who police said wounded himself with the weapon when it went off as he was fleeing the shooting scene--was discharged from UCI Medical Center in Orange on Tuesday night. He is being held at Juvenile Hall, police said.

“Justice would be to get him help,” Vink said. “I don’t think he could find that inside or outside the justice system.”