Girl’s final act saves life of infant boy

Monday, Sept. 9, 2002 | 11:15 a.m.

Before she succumbed to an errant bullet that tore through her chest, 9-year-old Genesis Estrada saved the life of an infant boy cradled in her arms.

Celia Becerril, 10-month-old Michael's mother, said she is convinced her son would have died if it hadn't been for the girl's final actions.

"She covered my son from the bullets with her body," Becerril said. "She was an angel when she was alive, and she is an angel now."

Genesis was standing outside her family's ground-floor apartment in North Las Vegas Saturday just before 5 p.m. when she and her younger sister, 8-year-old Heidi, were caught in the cross-fire of a gang-related gun battle, police said. Four men were arrested later that evening and charged with murder and attempted murder.

Becerril said she left Michael with the girls while she walked with their mother to the coin-operated laundry. The two families share an apartment at a small complex in the 3400 block of Civic Center Drive.

When the gunfight broke out, Genesis and Heidi rounded up the younger children playing in the apartment complex's small courtyard, urging them inside to safety, witnesses said. While Heidi scooped up her 4-year-old brother, Jonathan, and Genesis rushed to cover Michael. Despite her injuries, Genesis managed to shove Heidi, who was wounded in the right leg, toward the open apartment door before pitching the baby inside onto the living room carpet, said their oldest sister, 13-year-old Tannia, who witnessed the episode.

Genesis then fell herself, Tannia said.

"It was horrible, I'll never forget it," Tannia said. "I saw my sister bleeding on the floor, there was blood on her shirt. I heard screaming, I don't know if it was me."

A framed family photograph, with Genesis' face circled, was leaned against the wall outside the apartment door, surrounded by bouquets of flowers.

Heidi, who was released from University Medical Center Sunday, sat on a folding chair outside a neighbor's apartment and showed visitors the heavy row of black stitches that closed the wound in her upper right thigh.

"It hurts," Heidi said. "It hurts in my leg. It hurts that I have only one sister now."

The girls' mother, Noemy Estrada, speaking through a translator, described Genesis as a little girl who enjoyed playing with Barbie dolls and was looking forward to starting school this week. Estrada, who along with her children was baptized two months ago into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said she was "too full of sadness" to feel hatred toward her daughter's killers. She added that she would leave the punishment for the crime up to God.

She added that she hoped the people responsible for could some day forgive themselves and find forgiveness from God. "They took an innocent child's life," said Estrada, who has several part-time housekeeping jobs. "My daughter was innocent of all of this crime. She was a special girl."

The family moved into the complex just three days before the shooting, Estrada said. Tannia said she hopes her family will be able to move somewhere else soon.

"I don't want to live here anymore," she said, looking across the toy-strewn dirt yard to the makeshift shrine. "I want my family to be safe."

Witnesses said the incident unfolded when a man got out of a dark-colored vehicle in front of the apartment complex and chased a second man between buildings while shooting at him.

Less than five hours after the late afternoon shooting, four suspects had been arrested, all believed to be gang members, police said. Ricky Richardson, 20, Vontrell Davis, 20, Narsha Riles, 24, and Pascual Lozano, 22, were booked into the North Las Vegas Detention Center on charges of murder and attempted murder, as well as an enhancement for crimes committed in connection with gang activities, police said.

The four men are scheduled to be arraigned today.

The arrests, while welcome, are not enough, North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon said.

"Nothing is going to bring back that little girl," Montandon said. "My heart and prayers go out to her family."

North Las Vegas City Councilman William Robinson, who lives less than a mile from the scene of Saturday's shooting, said he plans to meet with police today to discuss the incident.

"We have a small group of thugs creating havoc, and that has to cease," Robinson said. "It's a travesty that children can't play outside their own homes. This is a growing, prospering city, and criminal element here must be eliminated."