Path of a Bullet

They have time on their hands, violence in their lives and guns within reach.

That is the profile of young murderers offered by juvenile justice experts who study them.

Ask them why young people kill, and they blame parental abuse or neglect, youthful selfcenteredness and impulsiveness, constant exposure to violence through TV and movies and the increasingly ready access to guns.

“A lot of crimes which would be assaults turn into homicides due to the availability of firearms,” says David Disco, who supervises the Los Angeles County district attorney's juvenile division.

Still, a fundamental question is why kids 14, 15, or 16 years old so often seem to resort to violence -- with or without weapons -- to make their points, solve their problems, and take their stands.

Life experience, the experts say.

They choose a route with which they have great familiarity.

A recent study in Sacramento found that half of 132 kids who had been arrested between ages 9 and 12 had been the subject of reports of abuse or neglect.

Many kids have never seen a conflict resolved in any way other than physically.

“A lot of people express themselves with their hands,” says John Schmocker, a Long Beach attorney who has represented teen-age killers. “Their children tend to be more physical also.”

They may begin at a very early age to express anger, hostility or disappointment through actions rather than words.

And no one tells them not to.

Many kids don't have a sense of right and wrong, because they don't have parents who teach them, says Kathleen Heide, a psychotherapist and University of South Florida criminology professor who has studied young murderers.

Moreover, the concept of consequences doesn't occur to kids, says Reneau Kennedy, a Harvard Medical School psychologist whose area of expertise is murder.

“All you're thinking about is the emotion surging within you and the .25 in your hand,” she says.

Some experts disagree with her notion about consequences. Bill Haney, a Pepperdine University law professor, says even a 6-year-old knows what's good and bad.

“He's not going to steal from a bully because he knows he'll get his teeth rearranged,” says Haney, who works with juvenile offenders.

Yes, they have a conscience, he says, but “in some instances, it's like a switch they turn on and off.

“They understand what they're doing, whether it's greed or vengeance,” Haney says. “Their whole lives operate around consequences. They think it through. In the main, what they do is calculated.”

And what they do is motivated by a self-centeredness that overrides any fear of consequences, he says. All that counts is what they want at a given moment.

“It's like a greed comes over them,” Haney says.

Or a situation gets out of hand.

“They get caught up in things and they don't know how to get out,” says attorney Schmocker. “They're engaged in a relatively petty crime, and when it starts to get worse they have no ability to extricate themselves.”

A 16-year-old may be trying to steal a bicycle when his victim begins chasing him, says Schmocker, who is appealing the conviction of a teen-ager who was found guilty of killing a Long Beach graduate student and gondolier for his bike in 1993.

Actions may be motivated by fear, the attorney says.

“Some of our children are rather hypervigilant,” he says. “They can be quick to take offense, to figure they're in danger.”

Especially if they've been victimized in the past.

“They're afraid to go to school. They've been beaten up one too many times.”

Adding fuel to an already potentially worrisome set of societal circumstances is the violence on TV and in movies, experts say. From an early age, children begin to form fantasy impressions about violent acts, and those don't disappear overnight.

One young gunman, after shooting a person and watching his own friend die, told Kennedy he hadn't known a bullet would inflict such damage.

“He didn't realize what it would be like to be shot because that wasn't the way it was on TV,” she says. “There is profound shock that the fantasy they're living actually ended with a consequence.”

The consequences would be less dire if kids weren't armed.

“(Guns are) generally available, incredibly deadly and there's no time for reflection when they're used,” says attorney Schmocker. “We have firearms in the hands of children who have not had time to develop discretion, judgment and self-control.”

Combined with gangs, drugs and alcohol, guns are lethal.

“More and more younger gang members, ages 13 and 14, are often the ones handed the guns because their (criminal) exposure is less,” says Vickie Hix, supervising deputy district attorney of the Orange County Juvenile Court.

Hix blames violent juvenile crime on parents who do not supervise or guide their children.

“They need someone to set limits for them,” she says, “to say no and mean it.”