A 12-year-old boy who died Saturday in Chula Vista accidentally shot himself with a pistol that a teenager brought to a sleepover, police said.
Investigators were investigating how the 15-year-old had access to the gun and who it belongs to, Lt. Dan Peak said. As of Tuesday afternoon, no arrests had been made.
Max Mendoza, 12, was killed Saturday in a shooting at his Chula Vista home.
(Courtesy photo)
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Peak said the victim, who the family identified as Maximilian Mendoza, had access to the gun during the sleepover at the Mendoza family’s home in the Woodland Hills condos on Telegraph Canyon Road. The shooting happened around 9 a.m.
Family members told the Union-Tribune they heard a gunshot and later found Max bleeding at his home. They took it out. His mother, Aida Mendoza, said she held her “child” in her arms as he repeatedly said, “Mom.” Mendoza told her son that she loved him.
Doctors took Max to a hospital, where he died.
“I miss him,” Mendoza said outside his home on Sunday as tears welled up in his eyes. “He had a very good heart – and a big heart.”
Investigators questioned the 15-year-old boy and later turned him over to his family.
Max was remembered as a respectful, kind and charismatic boy with a smile that a neighbor described as “genuine.” Relatives and neighbors said that she helped neighbors with shopping and took care of her four sisters. She taught her younger sisters to ride a bicycle, skateboard, and swim. He had recently graduated from Rogers Elementary School.
“He is the smartest, most handsome and sweetest boy you could have met,” neighbor Eliadora Foster said on Sunday as she cried. “He was the little man of the house and he behaved like one.”
Foster said Max was well known to the neighbors.
“The whole neighborhood cried because he is very special,” she said. “It hurts that he’s gone. They took it from us too soon ”.
Anyone with information about the shooting was asked to call San Diego County Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.
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