Gang Member, 15, Found Beaten to Death Near Home

For the past couple of weeks, until his violent death Monday, Gabriel Gomez Torres had been trying to clean up his act.

The 15-year-old gang member began wearing his older brother’s more conservative attire, changing his hairstyle and spending more time with his girlfriend--all in an attempt to avoid fights with other gang members, said Gabriel’s brother, George.

“He was tired of dressing like a homie because people would always flash signs at him and try to jump him,” said George, 17, a junior at Channel Islands High School. “He started borrowing my clothes and dressing like me instead.”

All that ended early Monday when Gabriel left his C Street home after an object was thrown through his window. At some point after that, Gabriel was beaten to death with a blunt object by at least one person.

Although Gabriel’s family believes the boy’s death was gang-related, police are not sure who did the beating, or why, or exactly when, Sgt. Cliff Troy said.

His badly bloodied body was found about 6 a.m. Monday on Hill Street, face down in a flower bed filled with yerba buena, about three blocks from his home.

Gabriel’s death is the third this year in a rash of suspected gang-related assaults, authorities say. An additional dozen people have been shot in suspected gang fighting, police say.

Maria Salud Medina said her son, Juan, 24, found Gabriel when he left for his job at a local nursery.

“He turned on the car lights and saw him along the side of the house,” Medina said in Spanish. “He thought it was a drunk. Then he saw the blood on the face.”

Blood had spattered as high as the eaves of the home, leaving Medina the task of washing the outside of her house after the police left.

“I have lived here five years and there has never been a problem before,” she said, tears in her eyes.

No one appears to have witnessed the event, but some neighbors said they heard people fighting about 3:30 a.m.

“I heard someone run into our yard and then arguing,” a 20-year-old neighbor said. “They were swearing like homies do.”

Although she has lived happily in the neighborhood her entire life, the woman said she’s worried now.

“We never had gang violence here before, that’s what’s really scary,” she said. “You can’t live anywhere and be safe anymore.”

The Torres family spent the day in their South Oxnard apartment mourning young Gabriel’s death.

George, who shared a bedroom with Gabriel, said his brother had run out the door with one sneaker on, chasing someone who smashed their second-floor window early Monday. Their mother had already left for her late shift at a retirement home in Camarillo.

George said he wasn’t sure what had attracted his brother to the life of a cholo but that his brother had quickly gained recognition as a good fighter and womanizer.

“He was real popular with girls from other gangs,” George said. “He was on the phone so much we called him an [telephone] operator.”

George said his brother had begun taking up healthier hobbies like dancing, but was shy about it.

“I’d catch him dancing in front of the mirror like I do, but he’d get all embarrassed and pretend he was boxing,” George said.

In grief, Gabriel’s mother, Elizabeth, said she wasn’t sure what to make of her son’s death.

“I just wanted a normal life for my child,” she said.