Losing a 15-year-old in a homicide is tragic enough, but just before Christmas is even more heartbreaking, said a woman who considered the teen her son.
Angel Reyes Hernandez was found fatally shot in a St. Paul park early Sunday, said Simona Najera, the mother of Hernandez’s best friend. She said Hernandez was living with her and her family in recent months.
Investigators arrested a 16-year-old male in connection to the case, police announced Monday night.
Police found Hernandez’s body just after midnight on Sunday in the parking lot of Arlington Arkwright Park — which has an off-leash dog park, sports fields and a picnic area — at Arlington Avenue and Arkwright Street. Paramedics pronounced him dead.
Najera is uncertain about what happened, but thinks Hernandez was in a car with people who may have been trying to rob him. She said her 16-year-old son was with Hernandez, of St. Paul, when he died.
“After Angel got shot, my son got up to the car and said, ‘Let me just grab my brother, don’t shoot me! Please, just let me grab my brother,’ ” Najera said of her son, who regarded Hernandez as his brother.
The people in the car took off. Najera’s son held Hernandez and screamed for help, but the 15-year-old stopped breathing.
The 16-year-old then ran toward a house where he saw lights on, until he noticed an approaching car. It turned out to be the police, whom he flagged down.
Police have not said where the killing happened or released additional information about what led to the arrest.
MOURNING A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT AT CHRISTMASTIME
Hernandez was a student at St. Paul’s Humboldt High School. Najera said he was living with a relative before he came to stay with them.
“I had faith in this kid,” Najera said. “I told Angel, ‘We’re not giving up on you, we love you. I’m going to help you get back on the right track and stay out of trouble.’ ”
Najera said Hernandez was trying to get his grades up and he was no longer hanging out with kids who he got in trouble with in the past.
She said she saw him as kind and respectful. He was becoming close with Najera’s family and was practicing to be a dancer at her niece’s quinceañera, a 15th birthday celebration.
Najera, already the mother of five children before Hernandez began staying with them, struggled to make ends meet, but she wanted to make sure the kids would have a good Christmas. She asked Hernandez what he wanted and he told her silly Christmas socks.
“I said, ‘Really? You don’t want anything else?’,” Najera said.
When she noticed Hernandez admiring a jacket at Target last week, she bought it for him. Now, she said she doesn’t know what do with his gifts.
“We’re all so broken right now over this,” Najera said Monday as she cried. “It’s so hard to believe because it’s Christmas and now we have to lay to rest a 15-year-old.”
