Death Claims Boy Trying to Flee Gangs : Violence: Marco’s mother sold her restaurant and had him transferred to a different school in effort to keep him away from crime. Now another 13-year-old is accused of killing him.

Family members knew the world of gang violence could threaten 13-year-old Marco Anthony Delgado Jr. It was the reason they transferred him recently from one middle school to another.

But the change of campuses could not change the world of violence in which the Long Beach boy lived--and died. He was gunned down Saturday by a suspected gang member as he was walking to a Burger King with friends and relatives, police said.

The suspected gunman--just 13--was arrested Sunday; his name is being withheld because of his age.

Now Marco’s mother is struggling to understand how a boy so young could get his hands on a semiautomatic handgun, and why he would want to kill her only child.

“It breaks my heart,” Beatriz Delgado said Wednesday. “He was my only light. I don’t think I have any reason to live anymore.”

Grieving family members said they had hoped to protect Marco from gangs by enrolling him at Hoover Middle School in Lakewood. Marco had always avoided gangs, they said, but at his old campus, Washington Middle School in Long Beach, he was frequently bullied by gang members; he often had butterflies in his stomach before heading there each day.

Police had no clues to the motive for the killing.

“I do this for a living and I’m still shocked,” said Detective Jorge Cisneros. “I have no idea why a 13-year-old boy would have a gun.”

Marco was shot near 3rd Street and Pacific Avenue about 6 p.m. as he, his cousin, uncle and two friends were walking to get dinner. They were confronted by two boys, including an acquaintance of Marco’s who used to bully him at Washington Middle School, said Marco’s 13-year-old cousin.

“The boy told Marco, ‘Remember me? I used to punch you at Washington,” said Marco’s cousin, fearfully speaking on the condition of anonymity. “We started to walk away, then he shot Marco in the eye. I was terrified.”

Marco’s cousin and friends ran to a nearby restaurant to hide. As the suspects fled, Marco’s 15-year-old uncle held the dying boy in his arms.

Police found a handgun near the scene. The next day, they arrested the suspected killer; they have not decided whether to make other arrests. The boy who was arrested in the case was expelled from a Long Beach school for bringing a gun on campus in 1993, officials said.

Friends and family remembered Marco as a kind, quiet boy who wanted to play professional baseball when he got older.

“He was so sweet,” said Julie Madden, a friend of the family. “He was the all-American boy. I can’t believe this.”

Beatriz Delgado recently sold her Long Beach restaurant, El Trebol, because she wanted to spend more time with her son. Now she’s trying to accept the fact that that will be impossible.

“No matter how many tears I shed, it won’t bring him back,” she said.

Often, youths who are charged with vicious crimes are tried as adults, but in cases in which the suspect is under 14, he must be tried in Juvenile Court, with a far lesser potential sentence. Marco’s aunt, Mary Ullao, is angered by that fact.

“If he’s old enough to have a gun, he’s old enough to be tried as an adult. They should send him to jail for the rest of his life,” she said.