Teenager’s history of crime dates to age 10

Jen Lawson

Tuesday, April 6, 2004 | 11:15 a.m.

A 17-year-old boy who has had numerous run-ins with police, including an arrest three years ago in connection with a plot of a "Columbine-style shooting" at his middle school, was charged Saturday with the attempted murder of two people, Metro Police said.

Brent Foster has a rap sheet in the juvenile system that dates back to when he was 10 years old, according to court records, and his most recent arrest, on Saturday, was his 12th, a court official said.

Foster is charged with shooting two young men on Feb. 7.

The victims were attending a birthday party near Sandhill Road and Harmon Avenue and had stepped outside to smoke cigarettes when they were confronted by a teen dressed in black, they told police.

The teen was "mad-dogging," or staring at them, so they asked him what was wrong, and the teen said he was going to hit one of them, according to the police report by Metro Detective Pete Calos.

One of the young men told the teen, "There's no need to fight. This is a party, we could all get along," the report says.

The boy, who police believe was Foster, "turned away, stopped, turned back around and said, 'Ah no, this is Los Primos,' " pulled a gun from under his shirt and shot one of them in the center of the chest.

The bullet went through him and struck his friend in the back as he tried to run away, Calos wrote in his report.

Police determined the gunman was a gang member known as "Troubles," a member of the Clica Los Primos Surenos, a local offshoot of a California-based street gang.

The victims, who survived the shooting, identified Foster in a photo lineup, and he was taken into custody on two counts of attempted murder.

Foster first came to the attention of authorities because he was allegedly a victim of abuse and neglect, records show.

Jonathan VanBoskerck, deputy district attorney in the juvenile justice section, wouldn't discuss Foster's case specifically but said the prosecutors with whom he works strive to give each child who comes through the system "care, control and guidance" to make them law-abiding citizens.

"We all care about kids and we try to do the best we can by them with what little resources we have," he said. But Foster's record shows a pattern of violence that escalated as he got older despite probation, stints at Spring Mountain Youth Camp and a stay at the Nevada Youth Training Center in Elko.

In 2001, when he was 14, police allege Foster planned to seek revenge against teachers and administrators of Woodbury Middle School after he was expelled.

The day before the second anniversary of the shooting in Littleton, Colo., that left 15 dead, Foster told people he was plotting a similar massacre, police allege.

Foster was spotted on campus with a bulge in his clothing that a school police officer suspected was a gun. School police chased him, but he got away. Metro and school police hunted for the boy and later found him at an apartment.

Police reported that they seized three rifles, a sawed-off shotgun and 500 rounds of ammunition from his home.

Foster was arrested on felony charges of grand larceny, possession of stolen weapons and threatening school employees. He ended up pleading guilty to lesser charges of loitering on school property and violating probation.

At the time of that arrest he was on probation for intimidating a witness in connection with a case involving a knife.

Foster was sent to Spring Mountain Youth Camp for the second time -- his first stint there was for violating probation in connection with an earlier weapons charge -- but he escaped.

His file was transferred to another state because his family was apparently moving, but after a series of probation violation arrests and an arrest on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon, he was sent to the Nevada Youth Training Center in Elko, records show.