Beaumont Neighborhood Shaken By Boy’s Shooting Death
“It’s a quiet neighborhood,” Beaumont resident Jodi Fisher observed a day after gunshots rang out on Helen Avenue.
Police received a 911 call from a 12-year-old in a home on Helen Avenue around 10:40 a.m. Thursday who said he heard a gunshot and that his friend was injured.
Police arrived on scene moments later and discovered that friend dead.
The boy who made the 911 call was arrested on suspicion of murder and booked into the Riverside Juvenile Hall, police said.
Just 24 hours after the incident, neighbors are still talking about what happened.
“It was all taped off,” Fisher described the chaotic moments from Thursday morning. “The cars were over there — a big CSI crime scene investigating van, a forensics team. They had the whole scene blocked off.”
“The question I have is why were two kids home alone?” another neighbor Derek Kurkowski noted.
Nadia Arriaza lives down the street. Her son goes to school with both boys and neither of them showed up for class Thursday. Arriaza says she thought she heard two shots.
“I heard gunshots but I said, ‘No way,'” said Arriaza. “I kept cleaning and cleaning. And when I got downstairs, the ambulance was in front of my house.”
Neighbors say after investigators arrived on scene, they went door-to-door asking if anyone saw or heard anything.
“They just wanted to search my backyard and make sure the weapon wasn’t thrown over the fence which was okay with me because I have kids who play back there,” said Fisher.
Neighbors say the family moved to the neighborhood about a year ago and there’s more than one child living at the home.
Police arrested the suspect boy’s parents, Christopher and Patricia Willis, on charges of child endangerment and negligent storage of firearms.
Beaumont Police say they found several loaded and unloaded guns around the Willis’ home.
At this point the investigation is continuing and police won’t say if it was an accident or not.
The family of the killed 12-year-old is looking to the community to help raise money to pay for the boy’s funeral.
To find out how you can help, call 951-769-6478. An account has also been setup at Wells Fargo: Account #9422619198.
