From News and Messenger:
A grand jury in Prince William Circuit Court has indicted a Fairfax teen on a murder charge for the November stabbing death of 15-year-old Miguel “Mickey” Hernandez in Manassas.
Boris Alfred Juarez Ascencio, 18, of Blake Lane in Fairfax, is charged with first-degree murder for the Nov. 19 stabbing.
According to court documents, Juarez, who was 17 at the time of the incident, has been certified to stand trial as an adult.
In court documents, witnesses said that Juarez stabbed Hernandez several times as he walked home from school on Bartow Street.
Another teen, 18-year-old Mauricio Martinez of Manassas, has also been charged in Hernandez’s death.
According to testimony at a preliminary hearing, Martinez and Juarez were both members of the criminal street gang of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.
Witnesses said Martinez identified Hernandez as a member of a rival gang and then Juarez stabbed him, according to police and prosecutors.
Police and Hernandez’s family members have said he was not affiliated with a gang.
That’s a pretty big mistake to make and now a boy who has been described by everyone as a ‘good kid’ is dead. Gang members need to be sent a strong message that we will not allow our kids to be hunted down in the streets and killed like dogs. Hopefully these alleged murderers will be facing capital charges and if convicted, will be executed. Child murderers simply do not deserve to be kept alive.
Good for those in law enforcement who solved this horrible crime quickly. MS-13 and other gang members need to understand that their presence will not be tolerated in our community. The wannabes need to learn that they do not wannabe anywhere close to a gang.
While this tragic murder happened in the City of Manassas, the border isn’t very far away. PWC will not have police officers in the middle schools. This is a dangerous time for that decision to be made. Middle school is when many kids are vulnerable to gang membership. The school resource officers recognize signs long before educators do. The BOCS needs to prioritize its objectives and find the money to restore the school resource officers. Our kids lives may depend on this happening. They might have to [GASP] raise taxes just a little for public safety.
Good job by our police.
If we want more police officers on the beat, we’re going to have to pay for them.
Two free events at GMU’s PW campus tonight.
At 6:30 pm there is a screening of the film “Bullied” @ Verizon auditorium with a light reception & facilitated discussion afterwards. Invitations went out to all school board members and administrators of the 3 local jurisdictions.
At 7 pm @ Hylton Performing Arts Center there’s a free (but ticketed, call the box office) Vision Series lecture with Professor David Weisburd on “Hot Spots of Crime & Crime Prevention.” There’s usually a Q&A afterwards and coffee in the lobby – good pace to discuss the issues.
Well run neighborhood watches – and people who are involved in their neighborhoods, working to keep them clean and safe — go a long way toward crime prevention.
Just wish I could be 2 places at the same time.
Starry is absolutely correct. People seem to think that these things are free. Public safety should always be a priority.
Great to see both Chief Keen and Chief Deane at the Vision series and plenty of “non criminal justice actors” (us regular folk). My takeaway: don’t blame an entire neighborhood for the hot spot crimes of one small area. And there’s plenty you can do to prevent crime if you recognize the predictors, such has a high concentration of at-risk youth, or low voter registration/turnout and work to address those problems.
Cindy, as always, you are right on!
BTW, how can you prove whether or not someone is in a gang, other than the obvious tattoos?
Cindy, thanks for the report on that gathering.
Starting next school year, Prince William County will have no resource officers in its middle schools. The high school ones will try to find time to go to the feeder schools. We all know how that works. It doesn’t.
Of course, if there is a problem, schools can call 911 or even the non emergency number but they will not get a resource person.
This is dead wrong. Obviously the gang problems in our area are getting worse if kids are being killed on the way home from school.
BOCS-you need to find a way to remedy this problem. Perhaps everyone needs to pay a penny or so more in taxes to fund this worthwhile program. It makes a HUGE difference in how young teens respond to law enforcement. They all want to be friends with officer middle school. The people trained for the job are personable and know how to relate to kids, even the hard cores.
I with Lucky Duck would drop by and reinforce how great of a program this is/soon to be was.
We could also take one penny out of somewhere else in the budget (reduce salaries, slow down hardware refreshes, decrease capital spending, etc.) to restore the resource officers.
If it’s a true priority then it should take funding from something else. It appears that other things have priority over this line item.
Pinko, for questions about gangs:
Mr. Richard H. Buchholz
Gang Response Intervention Team Coordinator
Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park
31st Court Service Unit
9540 Center Street, Suite 200
Manassas, VA 20110
Office (703) 792-5392
[email protected]