“It’s better to water grass at night,” yelled out sixty-four year old, Don Ramon, to his wife, sixty-two year old Julia, who was staring at him through their living room window.
Don was not Ramon’s first name. But it was added when talking to or mentioning him as a show of respect. It is the Spanish version of the English word Mister or sir. Everyone called Ramon, Don Ramon, out of love and respect for the kind, old man.
Don Ramon was a dark brown skin, short, balding man, who had a pot belly that stuck far out. He wore some hand made Mexican brown sandals on his feet and worn out khaki pants that looked to be in slightly better condition than his thrift store bought black Guns N Roses faded t-shirt.
It was ten o’clock at night during a hot July month in 1999 as Don Ramon attended to his fenceless front lawn. The sun had descended around nine o’clock that evening. Children played and popped fireworks outside of their homes down the street.
Once Julia received a response from her husband as to why he was watering the grass this late, she simply backed away from the window and closed the curtains. She walked back to the kitchen and continued washing the dishes from that night’s dinner.
Don Ramon’s wife of forty years was a female equal to her husband in appearance. She was slightly overweight, five feet tall, brown skinned, and had a short mushroom like styled hairdo. She also wore a thrift store bought purple muumuu dress that hovered slightly above her worn out pink, fuzzy slippers.
“Come inside now, kids. It’s getting late,” hollered Julia to her three grandkids that were playing tag in the backyard of their home. A few seconds later, all three kids ran inside and quickly ransacked the fridge for anything that would quench their young thirst.
Outside, Don Ramon continued watering his front lawn. He stared down at what he called, the hairs of the earth, as the cool water from the hose he held streamed down and drenched the cooling ground below. Don Ramon’s thoughts were simply on whether he should purchase a spray gun for his hose, so he wouldn’t have to use his thumb to make it spray.
“Give me your wallet,” Don Ramon heard someone say a few feet from where he stood.
He snapped his head up and saw a thin man dressed entirely in black clothing, with the hood of his sweater covering his head. Don Ramon only managed to glance up at his face for a split second, and then brought his attention a little further back down, near the dark man’s stomach. Don Ramon could not bring himself to look away from the object that the thin man held in his right hand. It was a chrome 38 revolver pistol pointed directly at him. The thin man held it near his own body to keep it away from the view of any persons who might be driving by, especially the police.
“Take it easy, buddy,” Don Ramon said to the man as he slightly raised his hands in the air. Don Ramon was trying to put him at ease so he wouldn’t get nervous and accidentally shoot him.
With an angry whisper to his voice the thin man then said, “Put your hands down.” He didn’t want anyone to suspect that he was actually trying to rob the old man. Don Ramon instantly complied and lowered his hands. “Now give me all your money before I kill you, old man,” said the thin man as he simultaneously cocked back the hammer on his pistol.
Don Ramon then noticed something else that was also as much of an attention grabber as the chrome shine of the pistol that the robber clutched in his hand. It was some gold teeth in his mouth. But what also snatched Don Ramon’s attention away from the gun was the cut out words on the top front of the thin man’s gold teeth. They spelled out the word, ‘East.’
The dark area where Don Ramon and the man stood suddenly became a small degree brighter when someone pulled back the living room curtain. “Ramon!” screamed Julia as she saw the grim scene that was taking place in front of her home.
“Stay inside the house,” Don Ramon yelled back to his wife in Spanish. Don Ramon wanted to make sure his wife completely understood him, so he spoke to her in their native tongue. Both he and his wife had traveled from central Mexico to the states several years before, but Don Ramon’s wife had not been able to properly learn the English language very well. The only real English she had managed to learn well enough to speak, were the cuss words she heard on a daily bases while walking down the crime ridden streets of the city of Roble, California where they now resided.
“What?” asked the thin man rhetorically with a twist to his face that was filled with merciless fury. Julia swiftly did as her husband ordered and closed the curtain. “Tell her not to call the police.”
“Don’t call the police. I’ve got everything under control,” yelled out Don Ramon to Julia.
The robber’s hand began to slightly quiver and it was clear he felt that the situation was slipping out of his control. An ear drum rupturing boom and a blinding flash was the last thing Don Ramon heard and saw before feeling his chest rip open by a white, hot bullet. Don Ramon could only whisper a child like grunt, which only his ears picked up, before collapsing back first onto his freshly watered grass.
The thin man in black stared down at Don Ramon’s deceased body for a fraction of a second after shooting him. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go down. But he’d panicked.
He then looked around to see if anybody had paid any attention to the gunshot. When he saw that no one had noticed anything, probably chalking off the sound as a firecracker, a car backfiring or something, he quickly dashed up the short steps that led to the old couple’s living room door. He feared that Julia, though, had heard the shot and was on her way to calling the police. The thin man grabbed the door handle and quickly turned it as he prepared to rush inside the house.
Julia was in her bedroom, seated on a chair next to her dresser, as she, indeed, was dialing the police. Her grandchildren were tucked away near her, under her bed. She would have joined them but she knew it wasn’t enough room for both her and the children.
The living room door came crashing open as the intruder stumbled inside. He franticly opened every door that he encountered in the small two bedroom house, until he finally found exactly who he was looking for. Then, without any pause, he raised the 38 revolver, pointed, and released three shots, which struck Julia in the head, just above her right ear, her neck and right shoulder. Julia’s head then slumped forward, near her knees as she slowly struggled to take her last breath.
Nine year old Jackie, the oldest of the three kids, placed her hand over Erik’s mouth, who was her five year old brother, as he began to softly whimper. Their cousin, eight year old Troy, remained silent from fear. But even if they would have made any sort of noise, the thin man would not have picked any of it up. His ears were still ringing from the gunshots.
He then began searching for anything that might seem valuable. He stuffed what he could in his pockets and snatched Julia’s purse off the dresser and ran outside. There, he kneeled beside Don Ramon’s body, rolled him over onto his stomach, and reached for the wallet that he had originally asked for. He pulled it out of his back pocket and with the swiftness of a starving animal that had just landed a meal, stuffed it in his pockets and speed walked down the street until he disappeared into the night.
The kids’ grandparents had told them before to run to the neighbor’s house if they were ever in trouble. A few minutes later, when they began noticing blood slowly streaming down the leg of their grandmother, they felt they couldn’t wait any longer. They crawled out from under the bed, and without trying to look at their dead, blood drenched, grandmother’s body, ran outside the house.
***
Don Ramon’s twenty-one year old next door neighbor, Kemo, had instantly stopped bouncing his two year old daughter, Rain, on his lap when he heard the man made thunder outside his small studio-like duplex apartment building.
Kemo was a handsome, light bronze flesh toned, well built young man. He sported a fade haircut, but always wore baseball caps. He also wore a diamond earring in his left ear, and dressed in hip hop flavored attire.
The smile that he and his daughter wore on their faces as they played together quickly faded to a look of wonder and worry. Kemo lifted Rain in his arms, stood up from the living room couch, and walked to their tiny kitchen. There, sitting at the small dinning table, was his baby mama, Jasmine.
Jasmine looked like she would make it in the top five for a Jennifer Lopez look a like contest, but would be rejected for her slight overweight figure.
Jasmine had some bills in her hand, along with a calculator. A pen and pad lay out across the table. She sat frozen, staring at Kemo as he walked towards her. “What was that? That didn’t sound like any fireworks,” said Jasmine.
“I know. It was a gun shot. And it sounded like it came from Don Ramon’s house,” said Kemo.
A few moments later, Kemo and his family heard a loud banging on their door. Kemo walked up to the living room door and looked through the peep hole and was barely able to make out some small heads below his view. He opened the door and the kids from next door quickly scrambled inside. A weeping Jackie explained what had happened, and as soon as she mentioned Julia being shot, Kemo ran to his closet, yanked the door open, reached up towards a shelf, and pulled out his 12 gauge Mossberg pistol grip shotgun, which was already fully loaded. He grabbed a box of extra ammo, stuffed it in his pants pocket, and ran towards the door.
“Baby, be careful,” yelled out Jasmine to Kemo as he stepped outside.
“Jasmine, call 911!” screamed Kemo when he saw Don Ramon’s body lying on the slick grass in the front yard of his house. He then looked towards the living room door entrance and noticed that it was wide open. Kemo didn’t want to take any chances, so he entered the house pointing the shotgun at any potential threat.
When he entered the bedroom where Julia sat dead, he knew it was all too late. He quickly looked away and stared at the wall in the hallway in total disbelief of what had occurred. His face had turned into a sickly pale color. Sweat lined the edges of his forehead. His heart felt like it was located in his throat as it pounded away with a rush of adrenaline. He closed his eyes and tried to compose himself.
A few seconds later, he remembered that he had told Jasmine to call 911. He didn’t want to tamper with any potential evidence that might lead to the killer, so he carefully turned to leave. Before Kemo had the chance to completely step out of the house, someone yelled from a distance, “Drop your weapon and get down on the ground, now!”
When Kemo saw the police officer pointing his gun at him, he instantly tossed his shotgun towards the officer, almost striking the man. The officer ducked to the side and was barely able to miss being hit by the shotgun. As soon as the shotgun was out of Kemo’s hands, he dived for cover next to the short concrete wall of the porch. A thousand things to say to the cop flooded Kemo’s mind, but only one managed to bypass his mental gate and exit out of his mouth. “Don’t shoot!”
Kemo knew that some cops were as trigger happy as any cold blooded hoodlum. Just when he was going to start yelling an explanation to the officer, Jasmine and the kids stepped outside and yelled out, “Don’t hurt him, he was trying to help.” Though the officer felt more at ease, he felt that he still had to do his job by the book and not take any chances.
“Stay inside. I’ll handle this,” said the officer to Jasmine and the kids. They never budged. The officer then instructed Kemo on how to surrender.
Kemo fully complied. At least I have witnesses if he does shoot me, thought Kemo as he walked backwards towards the officer as instructed.
The police officer then handcuffed Kemo and placed him in the back of his patrol car. After they investigated the crime scene, they determined that Kemo’s shotgun was not the weapon used to murder his neighbors. Another officer at the scene later approached the cruiser where Kemo was being held. He opened the door and said, “Don’t worry, you’re in the clear, but we still have to take you to jail for the shotgun.”
“But it’s legally ours. It’s under my girl’s name,” said Kemo.
“It doesn’t matter. You took a loaded weapon outside of your home and on to the streets. Our state doesn’t give permits to carry a loaded weapon. It’s supposed to stay in the home. And like you said, it’s her gun, not yours. But like I told you, don’t worry, it’s only a misdemeanor. You’ll be out by tomorrow.”
The officer then slammed the door shut. Kemo made a phone shape with his hand and mouthed to Jasmine, “I’ll call you.” The cop car then drove off to city jail.
It would be Kemo’s first time going to jail. As a teen, he had been to Juvenile Hall for petty stuff, so he hoped he could handle going to county jail as an ad