9-Year-Old Girl Is Killed by Stray Bullet as She Sleeps

Drinking beers and joking in the bleary hours of morning, the group of men playing cards in the courtyard of a Willowbrook apartment complex said they didn’t think much of the confrontation when it happened.

Their neighbor, Sergio Chavez, had opened the screen door of his tiny clapboard cottage and brusquely told them to keep the noise down while his family struggled to sleep in the stifling heat.

But when Chavez slammed the door and climbed back into bed, one of the card-players got up from the game and stormed off to his truck.

Moments later, according to Jesus Alvarado, the man came back in a rage, yelling and swinging a pistol in the darkness. With his arm swaying haphazardly, he aimed at the screen door and opened fire.

After several shots, he stopped and ran away, leaving only the piercing sounds of a desperate father and a little girl crying in the balmy air.

“He shot my daughter! He shot my daughter!” rang out through the community of Mexican immigrants, a tight-knit group who often go surf-fishing together on the weekends. “He hit my family,” he cried.

His two young daughters, both sleeping on a piece of foam on the floor, were hit--7-year-old Janet in the neck, 9-year-old Crystal in the heart.

While Janet was listed in stable condition at a hospital Saturday afternoon, Crystal was dead before the ambulance arrived, family members said.

Sergio Chavez was shot in the leg. He was treated and released from the hospital.

Several members of the large extended family in the crowded house escaped injury, including a 1-year-old who was sleeping in a crib leaning against the metal door that was riddled with bullets. A 2-year-old girl and Chavez’s wife, Irma, were also unharmed.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested Francisco Medina, 27, of Lynwood, in his truck shortly after the 3:15 a.m. shooting, authorities said. He is charged with murder and assault with a deadly weapon and is being held without bail at the Century station. Alvarado said he did not know Medina, who was visiting a friend in the complex.

Alvarado said they the group was just drinking beer as they sat joking and talking amiably around a stereo speaker. Neighbors, who were sitting together in lawn chairs Saturday afternoon grappling with the tragedy, said no one was affiliated with gangs and the area is generally peaceful.

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Adolfo Montes, cousin of Irma Chavez, was sleeping in his van behind the apartment when the shots woke him up. When he heard the crying, he jumped out and ran to the front door to see Janet screaming, blood flowing out of her neck.

Crystal seemed to be sleeping soundly while Montes and others whisked Janet outside and held her on the steps, waiting for the ambulance to come, he said. By the time they checked on Crystal, they noticed blood on the foam mattress around her heart. She was already dead, he said.

Armando Montes, another cousin, ran after the suspect, who was fumbling into his car. But seeing the gun in his hand, other neighbors grabbed Montes and held him back, the neighbors said. The suspect drove away and was caught by deputies soon after.

“The man was crazy,” said Armando Montes. “He just grabbed a gun and started shooting.”

Alvarado said Chavez, who works at nearby scrap metal yard, had sarcastically challenged the men, saying, “Who is enough man to get some more beer?”

But he couldn’t understand why Medina got so mad. Montes said he heard the suspect screaming in a stupor: “ ‘I’m not afraid of anything.’ He said he doesn’t fight with fists, only bullets.”

The bullets ripped through the door and three walls before exiting through the back of the cramped cottage into the alley where Armando and Adolfo Montes were sleeping in the van.

“How can someone not understand, with all these kids sleeping here, what will happen if he starts shooting here?” Montes asked.

Neighbors said the family was very close and often walked to the market together. One neighbor said Crystal was an effusive but shy girl.

“We just want there to be justice for this,” Montes said. “These people shouldn’t be loose on the streets, walking free.”