Defendant, 13, Says He Feared Assault

Blinking back tears, a 13-year-old Palmdale Pony League player accused of murder told a packed courtroom Thursday that he hit another boy in the head with a baseball bat because he feared that the older, bigger youth was going to assault him.

The defendant, who is black, also testified that 15-year-old Jeremy Rourke, who was white, addressed him with a racial epithet when the two met on the line to the ballpark snack shack.

“Move.... Don’t cut,” the defendant recounted Jeremy’s words to him. Jeremy, who stood a head taller and outweighed him by 100 pounds, then shoved him, the defendant said, causing him to stagger back and drop an equipment bag he had been carrying.

“I thought he was going to beat me up,” the defendant testified, his voice cracking with emotion inside Lancaster Juvenile Court on his second day of trial. “I was scared.”

In cross-examination, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lonnie Felker denounced the boy’s account.

That night, the two teenagers were surrounded by scores of adults and other children, Felker pointed out.

“Was there anything preventing you from turning around and walking away?” the attorney asked. “You could have walked away.”

“Yes,” the boy said in a small voice.

“You knew he was bigger ... but instead of walking away, you got a bat!” Felker said.

“Yes.”

The defendant also conceded that he was the first to use anything but his hands.

“Did Jeremy say anything to lead you to believe he would hurt you?” the prosecutor pressed again.

“No,” the boy said.

Defense attorney William McKinney asked the boy whether he intended to kill Jeremy. The boy answered no.

“I swung and hit him in the knees ... to get him to stop messing with me,” the 13-year-old said. But he then saw Jeremy bend over and ball his hand into a fist, he added, and, “I swung again.”

Prosecutors accuse the defendant of committing second-degree murder because he used deadly force against the victim. McKinney contends that the boy was acting in self-defense, because the victim was the first aggressor.

McKinney said he did not think the incident was racially motivated.

Witnesses for the defense testified Thursday that Jeremy was well-known in the Pony League for his explosive temper.

“He was a bully,” said Willy Tonkin, who once coached Jeremy when he was young enough to be in the league of 13- and 14-year-olds. Tonkin, who is white, said Jeremy also once threatened to beat up his son.

Felker objected that the allegation was hearsay, and the judge struck it from the record.

About a year ago at a league game, Jeremy was so upset at being thrown four balls by the pitcher that he threw his bat at least 50 feet toward third base, the former coach said. The bat ricocheted off a wall.

“The umpire kicked him out, ejected him from the game,” Tonkin said. Jeremy cursed the official “and with both hands he flipped off the umpire.”

Jeremy then punched another coach, grabbed a bat and seemed as if he were about to assault the umpire, before other adults intervened, Tonkin said.

Another time, the coach recalled, Jeremy grew so enraged at striking out that he threw his bat, which bounced into a kid’s leg. He also threw his helmet, which ricocheted and hit another kid.

Under prosecution questioning, however, Tonkin, the head of the Pony League junior umpire program, acknowledged that he found Jeremy fit to umpire the younger kids.

He also agreed that other boys had thrown their helmets in frustration over ballpark setbacks.

“To some kids, winning is everything,” Tonkin said.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Naranjo will hear closing arguments from both sides today.