Friends Say Teen Would Not Fight 3 Athletes

Christopher O’Leary was adamant, his friends said--he didn’t want to fight the football players, he wouldn’t fight them. But the three from Littlerock High School were bent on a brawl, the friends said, and had moved in simply because O’Leary told them not to call him “cuz.”

“That was it, there was nothing else to it,” said William Stiles, who said he was standing next to O’Leary at the time. “He said he didn’t want to fight but when he turned his back, one of the guys just cold-cocked him. Then they all jumped on him.”

On Thursday, O’Leary’s friends and loved ones offered their version of the moments leading up to the fight last Friday at a high school party that resulted in the 18-year-old’s death from head injuries.

At a dusty park in Palmdale, nearly 100 people gathered to remember O’Leary. Those who witnessed the incident said there was no explanation for why O’Leary was knocked to the ground and kicked in the head until he stopped moving.

Three Littlerock High football players have been arrested in connection with O’Leary’s death. Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators say the beating was unprovoked.

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O’Leary was described as an offbeat, expansive young man whose mind was filled with facts and figures about tree frogs and salamanders and whose interests lay in exploring anything he could get his hands on. He had pored over animal books since he was 6, though as a teenager he showed little interest in school and dropped out.

He wanted to open a pet shop, said friend J.R. Montgomery, and the two had plans to work in Belize this summer, collecting animals in the rain forest.

“And I don’t even like frogs,” said Montgomery, 25. “But this guy was so into it, it was hard to resist.”

Montgomery, who is black, dismissed talk that O’Leary had provoked the fight by calling the three African American football players a racial slur.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “Chris knew more about my culture than I did. My dad called him his white son.”

O’Leary’s mother drew tears from many when she shared recent memories of her son baking chicken for dinner and afterward sitting on the couch with his 15-year-old sister, listening to tribal flute music and talking about all the rain forests he planned to visit.

“Chris wasn’t an athlete, he didn’t have medals or trophies, there was nothing special hanging on his walls,” Kathleen Harris said. “But he was my star and he will always be my baby.”

The gathering showed that O’Leary’s friends form a wide circle of young people of different ages, ethnicities and ways of life, from preppy types to skateboarders, young adults to boys like 10-year-old Cody Wohlgang.

“Chris helped me skateboard,” said Cody, who lived down the block. “And he said he was going to bring me back a blue frog from Belize.”

O’Leary succumbed to his injuries Monday night. Richard Newton and Marcus Raines, both 17, had been scheduled to be arraigned in connection with the death Thursday, but the arraignment was continued to June 8, according to a spokeswoman for the district attorney.

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Their school principal said both Newton and Raines earned good grades and had no disciplinary records.

A third Littlerock student suspected in the beating was arrested late Wednesday. Prosecutors are reviewing the case against the 17-year-old boy, who remains in custody.

Times Community News reporter Greg Risling contributed to this story.