OAKLAND — Police here arrested two juveniles in the late-December robbery of a scooter, which presaged a deadly shooting later that day in which a 48-year-old father who tried to get the scooter back for his son was killed.
Police, who announced the arrests on Thursday, said the two boys — ages 13 and 11 — were among three juveniles accused in the Dec. 26 hold-up. Their arrests follow the early-January jailing of a 15-year-old boy, Neal Cox, on murder and robbery charges in the theft and subsequent shooting.
Investigators claim 48-year-old Ponciano “Chano” Tule Bernal tried to find the three teens suspected of taking the scooter from his son — leading to a confrontation that ended with Bernal being shot to death. All of them lived near 11th Avenue and Foothill Boulevard, where the shooting took place.
The 13-year-old was charged with robbery, Oakland police Lt. Gloria Beltran said. The 11-year-old was not charged, Beltran said, due to the child’s age. California law prohibits the criminal prosecution of children under the age of 12 for all but a handful of crimes, which include murder and various violent sex crimes.
The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office communications team declined to speak about the case, saying only that it “does not comment on cases involving juveniles.”
Cox has been charged as a juvenile, meaning he faces a period of incarceration up to his 25th birthday. It marks the second time in the past year that prosecutors charged a teen with killing someone in Oakland, after two boys — ages 13 and 12 — allegedly robbed a West Oakland store clerk at gunpoint. Police suspect the 13-year-old then fatally shot the clerk.