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 ...
These kids played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.
Just like Getready said :
“Prelude to home invasion? My guess is homeowner thought the worst was about to come, was angry and was in self defense mode.”
That is exactly what the man was thinking. No one does this late at night unless they up to no good. Again I ask “where were their parents?”
the guy seriously overreacted
So, you have no problem with shooting kids who are running away?
I sure hope you don’t own a firearm.
“There was another case of this where the “kids” were much older and were kicking in the back door around 3am. Someone got shot over that. That was much more plausable as those “kids” were out 3am kicking in someone’s back door”
Actually there have been a lot of those cases recently. I suspect there is a Tic Tok challenge or something. One story involved teens with paintball guns kicking doors and ringing doorbells. AT night however you can’t always tell those are paintball guns.
Details are always important. There are always two sides to every story. But it’s going to be pretty hard to defend using deadly force on a (presumably) unarmed kid just playing mischievous games. I admit I’ve done similar things as a kid. Albeit not in the middle of the night. That was later in my teens.
You just wait, the media is painting them as little angels now but in a few days we will learn more about them. Wanna bet they have been in trouble in the past?
not premeditated
Should have just shot through the door like a respectable Houston resident.
You are a female, I never saw girls doing it since they didn’t hang out with the boys and instead sat at home being nice, but we boys did it.
Stupidity is frequently fatal.
This is as it should be
Don’t do stupid stuff.
L
“Details are always important. There are always two sides to every story. But it’s going to be pretty hard to defend using deadly force on a (presumably) unarmed kid just playing mischievous games. I admit I’ve done similar things as a kid. Albeit not in the middle of the night. That was later in my teens.”
None of us did this in the middle of the night as teens or kids.
Also think about it, when we were growing up how common were home invasions? How much did we hear about it compared to now more so with the illegals? People now live on edge because of it. Got Ring.com just to record who is coming and going on their property. It was not that way back then.
Can’t you see why this man was uptight? He’s Bernie Geotz in his own home.
The door kicking one was a separate shooting a couple of weeks ago. Not this one.
” was in self defense mode.”
What part of shooting an unarmed kid in the back is self defense?
I must have missed that in mercenary school.
Sometimes (always) common sense mode needs to overpower self-defense mode.
Circa 1979, my cousin and I were doing it at 1 AM. Stupid yes, but seemed funny to us at 12.
Before I was a teen all little kids in the neighborhood play this game. We called it “ring and run” or “johnny doorbell” back then. By the time we were teens we were actually done playing it.
I can honestly say most of us were done by the time we were 11 years old. That was a game 7 or 8 year old’s played. So you can see why we sure has well would not have done this at midnight.
see my post 36
also who is even awake at 1 am?
If they were running away, whatever they did in the past is no reason for one to be dead.
Again, I really hope you don’t own a firearm.
I thought it said the kid was eleven.
My cousin and I would stay up all night when we spent the night at each other’s house. The goal was always to make it to sunrise.
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