One Tragic Act of Bravado Brought Heartache to Many : Crime: A teen-ager out to impress other youths fired a bullet that took the life of a 5-year-old half a mile away. Now he has been sentenced to four years in a juvenile camp.

By JANET RAE-DUPREE

April 30, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

All 15-year-old Miguel wanted to do was impress some neighborhood toughs with his bravado.

Sneaking the family gun from its locked hiding place, Miguel walked up to Sandison Street and Lagoon Avenue in Wilmington, where the youths often gather. Authorities said he showed off the weapon, then fired several rounds into the air.

He never thought, he told officials later, about where the bullets might come down.

On Tuesday, in a court hearing so filled with heartache that even the judge wept, Miguel admitted to involuntary manslaughter because one of the bullets he fired March 11 had come down half a mile away, striking a 5-year-old boy in the head.

The teen-ager--his last name cannot be used because of his age--stared glumly at his hands as Long Beach Juvenile Court Judge Pro Tem Preciliano Recendez sentenced him to up to four years in juvenile camp for the death of little Adrian Benitez, who died six days after the bullet lodged in his brain.

Before the sentencing, Adrian’s mother, Marta, pleaded through a Spanish interpreter for Miguel to be kept in custody as long as possible.

“I’m still alive, but I’m dead inside,” she said, sobbing softly. “He took away part of my life. I would like the strongest justice possible so that he would pay for all my suffering.”

The boy’s father, Francisco, said he hopes that other youths will learn from his son’s death never to treat a gun as a toy.

“I’d like (Miguel) to go to jail . . . so that the whole world can see it and so that other boys won’t do as he did,” Benitez said.

Moved by the parents’ pleas, Recendez briefly choked back tears as he ordered Miguel to juvenile camp for up to four years.

“Anything I do is not going to bring that life back,” he said, pushing up his glasses to brush away a tear. “But anything I do today might help rehabilitate this young man.”

The youth’s attorney, Michael Norris, said Miguel is a good student and would be able to finish enough course work to graduate from junior high school if the judge allowed him to remain under house arrest for another month.

Norris also asked the judge to consider releasing him at the end of the summer to let him enroll in high school with the rest of his class when the fall term begins.

Noting that the youth has no prior criminal record, Recendez agreed not to take him into custody until May 22 and to listen to new arguments Aug. 17 about whether Miguel should be released from juvenile camp to attend high school.

“I know the parents (of the victim) would want us to put the minor away forever,” Recendez said. “He may deserve that. But we have to consider what is best for this minor to help him become a productive member of society.”

Afterward, Norris said Miguel was devastated by the news that one of the bullets he fired had killed a child.

“At no time did he intend to injure anyone,” Norris said. “This is something he’s taken very, very hard.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Brent Osterstock said the case has been a wrenching one for everyone involved.

“Every (prosecutor) wants to put away every criminal, and on the one hand, I’d like to see him locked up for the rest of his life,” Osterstock said. “But on the other hand, he is a minor and we have a responsibility to deal with his rehabilitation.”

Sheriff’s homicide Detective Bob Tauson said he was surprised that his investigation turned up a suspect at all.

Shortly after Adrian Benitez was struck while walking along a quiet Carson street with his mother, experts estimated that the bullet could have been fired from anywhere within a two-mile radius.

Publicity about the boy’s injury, however, prompted a number of witnesses to report hearing guns fired that night. Many of the calls centered on a Wilmington neighborhood half a mile from where Adrian was struck.

After detectives were able to pick out Miguel as a suspect, the youth’s family turned over a .38-caliber gun kept in their home for protection. Ballistics tests proved that the weapon had fired the bullet that killed Adrian, authorities said.

“We were lucky to catch up with (Miguel),” Tauson said. “When we did, we expected to see some hard-core, tattooed individual. What we found was just a boy.”