By Marsha Ginsburg and Ryan Kim OF THE EXAMINER STAFF
When Rebecca Alberti-Castro heard the gunshot blast, she bolted
from her bedroom toward the living room and her son because she
thought "some maniac was out in the street" shooting people. She
never dreamed that her 11-year-old son would be the victim, and the
shooter would be a police officer.
In a bizarre sequence of events that began Thursday evening with an
innocent 911 call for help, a police officer in training who arrived at
the home to check on young Max Castro shot at the boy's attacking
sheep dog and grazed his partner before the bullet ricocheted and
lodged in Max's knee.
"He's been told whenever you have a problem, call police," said
Victor Castro, the boy's father. "I don't think he'll believe that now.
He called the police, and look at the result.
"Thank God it wasn't more tragic."
Max underwent surgery Thursday night at San Francisco General
Hospital and was listed in fair condition. The injured officer, a four-
year veteran identified as Jennifer Dorantes, was treated and released.
According to Alberti-Castro, the incident began at the dinner hour,
when Max decided to stay home and watch television rather than go
out for Chinese food with his father, brother and sister.
Max's grandmother, Yolanda Alberti, stepped out for half an hour to
go shopping, and it was then that Max apparently got a frightening
phone call, saying, "Max, I'm going to shoot you," the mother said.
The terrified little boy called his father's cell phone, which recorded a
message. As he was always taught to do in case he was in danger,
Max called 911.
Alberti-Castro then arrived home from her job as a nurse practitioner
with Clinica de la Raza in Oakland. She told her son she was
surprised to see him and thought he was out to dinner, she said.
"I didn't feel like dinner," Max told his mother as he watched TV.
Max, a quiet, shy boy, never mentioned the disturbing phone call or
the call to police, Alberti-Castro said. His mother went upstairs to her
bedroom, where she looked through her mail.
When officers arrived and knocked on the door of the Naples Street
home in the Crocker Amazon district, the family's protective sheep
dog, Sidney, and German shepherd, Niko, apparently came to the
door, she said.
When Max opened the door, Sidney apparently attacked Dorantes in
the buttocks. The officer in training, Julian Ng, fired one shot at the
sheep dog. Instead, the bullet grazed the leg of Dorantes before hitting
the ground and ricocheting into Max's leg.
Bleeding from the wound, Max led his dogs by the collar to the
kitchen and closed the door, his mother said, because he feared, he
told her, that the police were going to kill them.
He then went back toward the living room and fell on his side. When
Alberti-Castro, who had rushed downstairs, asked her son if he was
all right, he said, "I think I got shot in the knee."
Frantic and confused, Alberti-Castro said she tried to open the front
door but police held it shut from the outside and told her not to open
it, she said.
Father learns of son's shooting
When they finally came inside, she said, she was upset that police
wouldn't tell her what happened, and complained that there was no
sense of apology from the officers.
"An officer said to me, 'Are you going to apologize for your dog biting
one of our officers?'" she said.
While this was going on, the boy's father was a block away at his
mother's home, because he said that was where police told him they
were taking the boy when he called the house to answer his son's
page. But Max wasn't there.
As Castro went up the street, he panicked when he saw officers and
a woman on the ground he feared was his wife. When he heard a
minor had been shot, he was saddened, he said.
But, he said, when several police "jumped me," handcuffed him, and
made him lie down on the ground, he was angry.
And so was his wife.
"Our son gets shot and his dad's upset. It's like we don't have the right
to be upset," Alberti-Castro said. "It's not like, 'Oh my God, we've
shot your kid.' None of them have apologized. Where's the humanity?
" she asked.
Police Chief Fred Lau said he brought the police chaplain to the
hospital to speak with Alberti-Castro, but that she didn't wish to
speak to him. Lau offered to approach her, he said, but the chaplain
thought it best to leave her alone.
"We would have liked to have had the opportunity to apologize," said
Lau. "We'd like to let the little boy know we're really sorry about this.
We never intended to hurt him."
Lau said several investigations would be conducted, although he
pointed out that "there's at least two sides to every story."
Both Dorantes and Ng will be suspended with pay while the
department investigates.
Dorantes is a consummate professional with an outstanding
reputation, said Capt. Marsha Ashe of the Ingleside station, where
Dorantes works. "She's very well respected among her peers."
Homicide Lt. David Robinson said while the facts of the shooting
were not clear, officers are allowed to fire if they are attacked by
dogs.
"We discharge our weapons when there's no other options available,"
he said. "Obviously, this was a split-second decision."
Protective dogs
Castro said the dogs were normally well-behaved, but would react
aggressively when encountering strangers.
"The sheep dog won't let anyone in unless they're family or unless I let
him in," Castro said.
The dogs were taken by animal control officers to the San Francisco
animal shelter.
"I'm ecstatic he's OK," Alberti-Castro said Thursday night while
waiting for her son to come out of surgery. "But he's always been the
athletic one. If there's permanent damage, then this is serious.
"I've always been against guns, but now I don't think the police should
have guns. They're hotheads. They could have killed my son because
of a bite. Where's the value for life?"
Ray Delgado of The Examiner staff contributed to this report.
--------------------
Math 101:
Bush=Gore=McCain=Bradley=Clinton
=Global socialists who don't give a damn
about the Constitution, or American Sovereignty, or
your individual unalienable rights.
They are sell-outs and traitors.
Our chains are forged!
Their clanking may be heard inside the beltway of Washington, DC!
Go look in to your children or grandchildren's eyes
then decide:
Which Traitor are you going to vote for?
When are you people going to wake up?
----------------
If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for evil.
Vote for Alan Keyes
http://www.keyes2000.org
He is the ONLY candidate that is talking about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and Liberty.
*********************[EMAIL PROTECTED]********************
The Patriot Resource Center:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6627/
Online Patriot Internet Radio:
http://www.geocities.com/aresister_2000/
**********************Live Free or
Die!*********************<><
