Rule Of Law

Gun Play In Battlement Mesa

By Michael Conniff, 11-10-05

“This is just a dream, right?" Eric Stoneman, 14, is shouting from the back of a patrol car. “I'm going to wake up, right?�

No—this is no dream, this is the next day of the rest of Eric Stoneman’s young life, a life that could be spent in prison because he is charged as an adult with the shooting death of Taylor DeMarco, 9, with a .22-caliber semi-automatic handgun owned by Stoneman’s mother. Both families lived in the Saddleback mobile home park where the shooting occurred.

“I'm going to burn in hell,� Stoneman says in the patrol car. “I'm going to prison for the rest of my life, aren't I?�

This was not the first shooting of a boy in Battlement Mesa, according to reporter Charlie Brennan in the Rocky Mountain News. The first one came in 2003, when Nick Jones, 12, was shot to death at the house of one of his friends in Battlement Mesa. Both Nick Jones and Taylor DeMarco went to Bea Underwood Elementary. Nick Jones’s death was ruled an accident but Eric Stoneman is on trial for first-degree murder.

In a court hearing, Bill DeMarco, 39, Taylor’s father, had to be restrained from attacking the boy who shot and killed his son.

"How can an 'innocent person' threaten to return…with a gun,� said Wendi Robyn, Taylor DeMarco’s mother, “actually return with one, point the gun at two boys, threatening to kill them, chase them into another room and threaten to shoot out the door, and then actually shoot one of them, and killing him call it an accident? How is that possible? His moment of clarity occurred after the incident.�

"In my heart, I know it was an accident," said Valorie Stoneman, Eric’s mother. "Lashing out at me isn't going to make anything better. I've lost everything I had. My son. Everything."

The prosecutor has something at stake in the case as well. Colleen Truden, 9th Judicial District Attorney, is facing a recall election next month in the face of intense criticism of her office. Her critics—including a child advocacy nonprofit—are saying she is charging Stoneman as an adult to gain political advantage, a charge she strenuously denies.

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