Posted on 09/03/2025 4:52:18 PM PDT by Morgana
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A 42-year-old man is charged with murder after he allegedly shot an 11-year-old boy who was playing the "ding dong ditch" game with his friends Saturday night.
Gonzalo Leon Jr. is accused of fatally shooting 11-year-old Julian Guzman on Saturday night.
Court records show that Guzman, his cousin, and some other friends were at a relative's house on Racine Street attending a birthday party. The boys reportedly got bored and decided to play the "ding dong ditch" game around the neighborhood.
Guzman and his cousin were ringing doorbells of homes in the area and running away, records state. A witness said Guzman had run to Leon's home, rang the doorbell several times, and began to run away.
Court records show that's when Leon allegedly walked out of his house, onto a public street, pointed a gun, and fired.
"There was no weapon displayed (by the boy)," Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said. "No theft of property, the young man was shot in the back, on a public street. It's a murder."
Julian was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead on Sunday.
Leon was initially detained by police Saturday night. Records show he would not talk to the police and asked for a lawyer. Among several reasons that prosecutors could not immediately charge Leon was that the eyewitness did not identify him as the shooter.
"One of the initial issues is that we had a negative ID," Teare said. "But that's explained in any case where you just had a young man who just watched his cousin get gunned down, and show him 6 pictures to identify somebody."
(Excerpt) Read more at abc13.com ...
It is being reported that they rang the bell and ran.
Growing up I was always told don’t play or wonder around people’s yards at night. You’re liable to get your ass shot off.
Mr. Leon has two options, take a deal, or roll the dice at the Harris County Courthouse.
Purely a generalization from my experience with firearms.
“Growing up I was always told don’t play or wonder around people’s yards at night. You’re liable to get your ass shot off.”
So you are either in West Virginia or Kentucky?
Yes I’ve heard that too. Sometimes you did not go on their yard during the day, they might meet you at the porch with a shotgun.
I suspect the outcome would be nearly the same for either option.
Taking whatever deal they might offer is probably the best bet.
A jury is not going to like this case at all.
Good question; but I doubt being inebriated would cut him much slack in the shooting of a kid.
You and your attorney can argue that with the prosecutor. A kid ringing doorbells is going to be a tough sell. Good luck.
Most of them are on their technology at 11 PM, so to hear some are making the rounds because of boredom in a neighborhood is a little blast from the past...
But that leads to potential interactions with authorities or angry neighbors.
In this case, both.
Kentucky.
You don’t mess with people or their property at all, let alone at 11.30 at night. Now I’m reading that this kid was bothering that particular address over and over that night.
He got what was coming to him
.11 year olds know good and well not to wind somebody up like that without risking heavy push back. This is as much “just a game” as the Knockout Game was when it was a more common thing.
As I understand it from your statement, the shooter, having been woken, saw the kids leave, then went outside and waited for the kids to return, and when they did, he chased them and shot the kid from the rear. That would certainly change things. That could be premeditated murder. Gonna be lots of he said/they said.
Did the kids returning mean that they were going to ring the bell again? What a mess.
Don’t mess with strangers....lots of repurcussions....
D*mn...
I played the game 2 or 3 times...in the daytime..walking home from school...one guy got pissed ..I figured that was enough...I was being a nuisance...so I stopped.
Night Owls, Dopers, Insomniacs and Jezebels
“You don’t mess with people or their property at all, let alone at 11.30 at night. Now I’m reading that this kid was bothering that particular address over and over that night.
He got what was coming to him
.11 year olds know good and well not to wind somebody up like that without risking heavy push back. This is as much “just a game” as the Knockout Game was when it was a more common thing.”
Yet people here think I’m cold hearted because I basically said the same thing?
Yes kids that age know better but also his parents should not have let him roam around.
From what I gather the kids had been ringing his house several times.
Yeah, I avoided it also seeing that it was just an annoyance, after once or twice you wonder what the guys are seeing in it, what I do remember though is how seperate the stranger grown ups were from us, so empathy didn’t come instantly or to all of us, the grown ups were a little like space aliens to us, messing with them was like throwing rocks at alligators, there was a huge gulf between our two worlds.
“”””He got what was coming to him””””
Lol, death, some of you guys are puzzling indeed.
“”””As I understand it from your statement, the shooter, having been woken””””
It wasn’t even 11:00 yet, on a Saturday night, when the murder occured, the guy was probably not asleep.
“He got what was coming to him”
And the dude doing the shooting is going to lose his house, that red Mustang in the driveway, his family, his livelihood, his freedom, and every penny to his name.
On the ledger of life, killing a kid for knocking on his door was not great decision.
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