Road Rage in Oak Cliff

I do not understand what possesses someone to do something like this. Some people should never be allowed to become adults, because they clearly haven't developed the impulse control of a field mouse. If you turn 18 and believe that "It's OK to shoot someone who almost hits me in a parking lot" then you should just have to die, be reincarnated as a cockroach, and start over again.

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Police seek witnesses of road rage

Police eager to find witnesses to deadly parking lot incident

09:22 AM CST on Tuesday, February 1, 2005

By MICHAEL GRABELL / The Dallas Morning News

JIM MAHONEY/DMN
Gilbert Garza, stepfather of Ruben Juarez, and Christin Juarez, Ruben's sister, try to comfort Ruben's mother, Mary Juarez, in their home. Relatives said the mother has been traumatized since learning that her 14-year-old son, Ruben Juarez, was shot and killed Sunday in a shopping center parking lot in west Oak Cliff.

"He didn't deserve this," Ms. Juarez said. "His life hadn't even started yet. He had so much more."

Dallas police say Ruben's slaying might have resulted from road rage. Investigators are looking for witnesses, but so far none has come forward.

On Monday, family and friends were mourning the Greiner Middle School seventh-grader who liked basketball and country music. He wanted to go to college and be an engineer.

For the last year, Ruben spent most of his afternoons practicing with Dream Team Cadets, a dance group that trains teenage boys to escort girls at quinceañeras and perform at festivals.

"He wasn't into gangs or drugs or anything," Ms. Juarez said. "He had a good head on his shoulders."

Sunday afternoon, Ruben and his mother were sitting around and joking in their small home near Westmoreland Avenue and West Davis Street.

They had recently moved from another part of Oak Cliff and were living there temporarily before moving to a house near the Lancaster border. Ms. Juarez said she was afraid for her children's safety after being robbed in a home invasion late last year.

About 2 p.m. Sunday, his stepfather said he was going to a neighborhood store to buy cigarettes. Ruben wanted a soda and went along, relatives said.

But as they cut through a parking lot on West Davis Street as they always did, their sport utility vehicle and another car almost collided.

"They just honked, but I didn't think anything of it," said Gilbert Garza, Ruben's stepfather. "I never thought they were going to shoot."

But the driver got out and fired a rifle into the SUV. The bullet went through the side door, through Mr. Garza's arm and, finally, through Ruben's heart.

Mr. Garza raced the few blocks home. Ms. Juarez ran out to the car and found Ruben slumped over in the passenger seat.

"I ran to his door, and I picked him up. I looked at him, and I knew he was dead as soon as I saw his eyes," she said.

She said she heard him gasp and told him to stay awake and fight. But it was too late. He was pronounced dead less than 30 minutes later.

Ruben was close to his mother, family and friends said.

"He never left her," said Rachel Mena, Ms. Juarez's aunt. "She hurt, he hurt. He was that type of person."

Gus Hernandez, the dance team manager, said the little money that Ruben made performing, he gave to his mother.

Police said the suspected shooter is a Hispanic man, about 17 years old, 180 pounds and 5 feet, 10 inches tall. He was driving a gray or champagne-colored car, possibly a Geo Prism.

"That's a very busy intersection and a busy parking lot," homicide Sgt. Gary Kirkpatrick said. "We feel like there's a number of people there that saw some or all of it, and we need to talk to them."

Although the shooting occurred in a parking lot that includes the popular Bargin City Bazaar, the incident happened between a taqueria and a bus station.

On a wall of the bus station is a mural with images of a Hispanic family, schoolchildren, a mariachi band and the Virgin of Guadalupe. There is an inscription: "Individually, we're all mortal; together, we are eternal."

Police want anyone with information to call the Dallas homicide unit at 214-671-3661 or Crime Stoppers at 214-373-TIPS (8477).

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Pathetic.

S.