2 San Bernardino Teens Surrender in Father’s Killing

Accompanied by half a dozen television news cameras, two San Bernardino teenagers turned themselves in Friday after one of them shot their father to death the night before, San Bernardino police said.

David Duke, 44, had been arguing with two of his sons in their backyard in the 100 block of South Mt. Vernon Avenue on Thursday night, police said. At 9:48 p.m., one of the sons allegedly shot Duke with a handgun.

When their mother ran outside, the boys fled, police said. On Friday, after their descriptions were broadcast on radio and TV, the boys called their mother and, apparently, the local media when they were ready to surrender. They were booked on suspicion of murder and taken to Juvenile Hall.

Jose Hernandez, 56, who lives next door to the Dukes, said he saw the father about 3 p.m. Thursday when Hernandez gave him a bag of peaches from a backyard tree.

That night, Hernandez said, he heard two shots.

“I thought they were firecrackers,” he said. “Sometimes they threw firecrackers on the yard.”

Soon afterward, he said, the Dukes’ eldest daughter, rushed into the Hernandez home.

“Let me use the phone because my daddy had been shot,’ ” Hernandez quoted the daughter as saying. “When I looked through the window, he was lying down and he had a lot of blood.”

On Friday, according to KABC-TV Channel 7 News, the brothers or a friend called the station to announce their impending surrender.

They asked to be met by a camera crew in the parking lot of a supermarket near San Bernardino Police Department headquarters so that they could be taped as they went to turn themselves in. They were afraid the police might hurt them, the station said.

Hernandez said he believed Duke had immigrated from El Salvador and that his wife Maria had immigrated from Mexico. The couple had 10 children, he said.