Joe jumped up from his seat, hurling invectives at Jesse and making a dash for the small white boy.
Realizing what was unfolding before him, Colschen took off after Joe. He reached the troubled student before he was able to attack Jesse Zahrask. Colschen stepped in front of Joe and blocked his path to the other boy.
Joe was insistent and kept making advances to go through Colschen, who grabbed the student by the lapel of his shirt.
“Joe, just calm down. Stop this. Calm down,” Colschen suggested.
“Don’t screw with me, okay?” Joe intoned. “I’ll hurt you, man.”
Colschen did not respond.
“You don’t know me,” Joe snapped at the assistant principal. “If you don’t get your hands off me, I’ll fix it so you can’t have babies for a while, man.”
Colschen, who stood approximately five-ten and weighed 190 pounds, pushed the much smaller young man into the wall, and placed him in a full nelson wrestling hold. Joe began to buck violently against Colschen’s grasp.
Assistant Principal Todd, who stood six feet tall and weighed more than three hundred pounds, grabbed Joe by his belt loop to keep him from lashing out against Colschen.
“Let go of my pants!” Joe barked at Todd. “I’ll get you,” he yelled at the two assistant principals.
Todd stated that Joe Medellin “became so violent that I . . . had to help restrain him with Mr. Colschen’s help. He was so violent it took both of us” to restrain him.
Todd and Colschen eventually took control of Joe and marched him down to the principal’s office.
“You messed up, now,” Joe threatened the assistant principals. “I’m gonna pop your asses,” a slang for threatening to shoot them. “I’m gonna kill you. I’ll kill you both.”
Colschen and Todd pulled the thrashing student to the office. He continued to yell at the men the entire time. “I’ll kill you, I’m not like you. Life don’t mean nothing to me.”
Once they corralled Joe and got him into the office, they handcuffed him and sat him down in a chair.
“I’m gonna kill you two mothers!” he continued to shout. Finally he calmed down momentarily.
Joe sat quietly, then began to brag to the men. “Yeah, I could go to jail, man. Ain’t no big deal. Jail don’t scare me.
“Next time you see me, man, it’ll be my picture in the papers. I’ll be famous. It’ll be ’cause I killed somebody.” He grinned at Todd. He paused and grinned again. “Probably a cop.”
“Does that mean you are planning on killing me?” asked Todd, who also volunteered as a reserve at one of the downtown jails.
Joe said nothing. He simply grinned. “I’m gonna get you.”
According to Colschen, he contacted Joe’s parents, and his mother came and picked him up. He was suspended from school pending an expulsion hearing.
Joe Medellin’s time off from school was not productive. On July 18, 1992, Joe was sitting in the passenger seat of his friend’s father’s car. His friend, Peter Cantu, had stopped the car and jumped out. Joe and Peter’s brother, Joe Cantu, who was sitting in the backseat of the car, watched as Peter yelled at some people in another car.
Suddenly a police cruiser pulled up on the same street. Peter jumped back into his dad’s car and took off. Peter was chased by police until he pulled over at West Thirtieth Street and Yale Street, near the Heights.
Officer Paul Stavinoha shined a spotlight through the back window of the car and could see Joe Medellin “stooping over” in the passenger seat and placing something underneath it. Stavinoha decided to call backup, as such an action is often viewed as either hiding something illegal or a weapon. The officer waited until two more officers arrived.
Stavinoha ordered Peter out of the vehicle. He then ordered him to approach the officer, where he was searched, handcuffed, and placed into the patrol car.
Stavinoha ordered the front-seat passenger, Joe Medellin, out of the vehicle and over toward him. He, too, was searched, handcuffed, and placed in one of the police cars.
The passenger in the backseat, Joe Cantu, was also ordered out of the car, searched, cuffed, and detained.
After the three teenage boys were placed in vehicles, Stavinoha approached the stolen car on the passenger side where Joe Medellin had sat. The door was wide open. The officer bent down and glanced underneath the passenger seat; he spotted a gleaming silver .38-caliber pistol. He also eyed two .38 SP special live rounds of ammunition next to the gun.
The young men were taken to the police station. Peter Cantu was later charged with driving without a driver’s license and other minor traffic infractions. Joe Medellin was charged with possession of a stolen gun. He would receive deferred adjudication and be placed on probation.
He would, however, be allowed to return to school.
The following October, Clarence Todd and Joe Medellin had another run-in. Todd was walking the corridors of the school when he received a report over his walkie-talkie of a fight breaking out in the commons area.
By the time Todd made it to the commons, he witnessed a melee like he had never seen before. It looked like a multiple-participant cage match out of an old-school professional-wrestling event. There were too many people involved to get an accurate count. All that could be discerned was there were a group of Hispanic kids fighting a group of black kids. It would be later learned that all of them were from the same neighborhood, the Heather Glen Subdivision.
One of those in the free-for-all was Joe Medellin. Punches were thrown, curses were screamed, and blood was spilled.
Somehow, Todd was able to contain the fight, along with the help of several teachers. Some students were shuttled off to the nurse to tend to their wounds. Others were rounded up and led to the office. Parents were called. Discipline papers were drawn up.
Joe was suspended again, pending another expulsion hearing. He was eventually expelled from school and transferred to the alternative education program at Drew Middle School for the rest of the school year.
Joe would never return to Eisenhower High School.
In a letter, Joe claimed he dropped out of school not because I couldn’t handle the work, [but] because if you give me the time of day, you’ll see that I’ve [sic] quite intelligent. Joe claimed to have different plans from the average American high-school student. His goal was to earn his GED and then head back to “the Motherland”—Mexico—and join the Mexican military. He later claimed he thought about joining the United States military, but decided against it. He did not want anyone to think he was a “traitor” to his home country.
He would join neither.
Joe Medellin went to work for a company that poured concrete foundations for homebuilders. The business was owned by a Hispanic gentleman named Sebastien Sota. He also assisted Sota’s wife with her maid service by cleaning houses. The Sotas were very impressed with Joe. He always did what they asked of him and he never complained.
Joe rose early every day and clocked in at 6:00 A.M. He would usually work until 5:00 or 6:00 P.M., and sometimes as late as 8:00 P.M. He received $35 a day for his services.
Joe’s family was grateful for their son’s contribution. He would hand over half his paycheck without having been asked to do so. He wanted to make a difference for his family. He would spend the rest of his money buying shoes for his dad or clothes for his mother. He loved his family and only wanted the best for them.
Chapter 10
Thursday, June 24, 1993—8:00 P.M.
Silver Creek Apartments
Mangum Road
Houston, Texas
Melissa Pena smiled as she watched her daughter and her best friend laugh together. She was very happy Elizabeth had found a good friend like Jennifer Ertman, who was a good kid that never got into trouble. She felt as if the younger girl would be an excellent influence for her daughter.
Melissa drove the two girls down Thirty-fourth Street to the Silver Creek Apartments on Mangum Road so they could meet up with their friend Gina Escamill
a. Melissa pulled into the apartment complex entrance and drove around to Gina’s apartment. Jennifer jumped out of the vehicle and said, “Thanks, Mrs. Pena. See you later.”
Elizabeth believed she was too old to give her mom a good-bye kiss, so she simply told her, “I love you, Mom. We’ll see you later tonight.”
“I love you, too, honey,” Melissa responded, and gave her daughter a big grin and a wave. Melissa pulled out of the parking lot, glanced up at her rearview mirror to take one more look at her lovely daughter, and then pulled back out onto the road.
The girls bounded toward Gina’s apartment. They were greeted by Gina’s little sister and mother. As soon as the girls exchanged pleasantries with Gina’s mother, the three of them escaped to Gina’s bedroom and did the things that teenage girls do—talk about boys, laugh, and act silly together.
While they were lying around Gina’s room, Jennifer’s pager started to beep. She looked down at the LCD readout and saw it was her mother. Most teenagers would be annoyed to receive a page from one of their parents, but not Jennifer.
Jennifer asked Gina if she could use her phone to call her mom back. It was not unusual for the Ertmans to page their daughter three or four times a night when she was out with friends.
“Of course,” Gina stated agreeably.
“Thanks,” Jennifer said as she picked up the phone and dialed her parents’ number. Her mother answered the telephone.
“Hi, Mom. How’s it going?”
“We’re good, honey. How are you doing?”
“We’re good, Mom. Just hanging out over at Gina’s,” Jennifer responded.
“All right, honey. I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right,” Mrs. Ertman said. “I love you, baby. Be good.”
“I will, Mom. I love you, too.”
The Ertman women hung up their respective telephones.
After gabbing for several minutes, the three girls decided to go outside and chat. They stayed outside Gina’s apartment talking for the next ninety minutes.
Chapter 11
Thursday, June 24, 1993—9:00 P.M.
Sandoval residence
Ashland Street
Houston, Texas
Peter Cantu picked up the telephone and dialed his friends Ramon and Frank Sandoval, nineteen-year-old twin brothers. He informed the brothers they had special plans for the evening and they needed to get ready. The brothers agreed, hung up the phone, and prepared to meet up with Cantu and the rest of his friends. They had no idea what the reason was for getting together, but they knew when Cantu told them to do something, they had better be ready to do it.
Frank Sandoval was a ninth-grade dropout. He worked at the local retail store Weiners in their warehouse moving furniture and large boxes. He was a fairly small young man, but he could handle a heavy load rather easily. He also lived at home with his parents and his twin brother, Ramon.
Ramon Sandoval had been friends with Peter Cantu since they met each other in middle school in 1989 and found out they were neighbors. Cantu lived directly next door to the Sandovals. Peter introduced Ramon to his other friend, Joe Medellin, around the same time. Medellin lived in the house on the opposite side of the Cantus. Ramon introduced Peter and Joe to Frank, but his twin brother did not hang out with the guys very much over the next few years.
The following year, Peter introduced Ramon to another friend of his named Sean O’Brien. Beginning in 1990, the four boys were a tight-knit group. They never considered themselves a gang, just a group of friends who enjoyed giving each other a hard time. This consisted of cursing at each other and ribbing one another. “Yo momma” jokes were prevalent.
The group of teenage boys used to hang out together at various locations. Sometimes it would be at T. C. Jester Park, near the railroad trestle across White Oak Bayou. Other times they would go to Cantu’s house and play poker. Almost always they had alcohol with them. Usually, a forty-ounce malt liquor or some other type of beer.
The boys also decided to memorialize their friendship. They all got matching tattoos of a cross with their individual name inked across it. Ramon got his done by Cantu, who etched in the basic prison-style tattoo. Joe Medellin had Joe tattooed on his body. All of the boys’ tattoos were created and applied by one of the other boys in the group. Ramon Sandoval later stated they “got it for the fun of it.” The tattoos allegedly held no significance for him or the other boys.
At approximately 9:15 P.M., Cantu, Raul, and Yuni Medellin pulled up to the Sandovals’ house in Cantu’s red Ford pickup truck. They were immediately followed by Joe Medellin and Perez in Perez’s gray car. All five young men hung out in the Sandoval front yard until Cantu went inside to get the brothers. While in their house, Cantu let them know what Raul Villarreal was hoping to do. He found it funny that Raul thought they were in an official gang.
“But let’s kick his ass anyway.” Cantu laughed, as did the Sandoval brothers.
“Let’s call Sean and do it over at his place by the Bayou,” Cantu added. He made the call and they headed outside.
All seven of the young men hopped into the two cars and headed out to meet Sean O’Brien.
At approximately 9:30 P.M., the two carloads of teenagers pulled up into the tiny gravel triangular parking lot of the P-One convenience store on Thirty-fourth Street, just down the road from O’Brien’s apartment complex.
They managed to purchase four 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor.
All seven young men hopped back into the two vehicles and drove less than one-eighth of a mile to the Clearbrook Apartments.
Thursday, June 24, 1993—9:45 P.M.
O’Brien residence
Clearbrook Apartments
West Thirty-fourth Street
Houston, Texas
The Clearbrook Apartments are a confusing mishmash of dwellings. There are three separate sections with three separate entrances. The buildings all look similar with their two-story blue boxes and gray-ribbed trim, like something out of a bad ’70s movie. Cantu and the boys could not remember which building O’Brien lived in, so they parked the car and sent Yuni to go find it. It was only appropriate, since he was the youngest in the group.
Yuni wandered around two sections of the complex for nearly ten minutes before he finally stumbled across O’Brien’s apartment. He went back to tell the guys, who were sitting on their cars and drinking the malt liquor.
“Did you find him?” Cantu asked.
“Yeah, it’s all the way over there,” Yuni informed them. They all walked over to O’Brien’s apartment and rang his doorbell.
A rather sleepy-looking Sean O’Brien opened the door.
“What up?” he asked the assorted motley crew before him.
It was 10:00 P.M.
DERRICK SEAN O’BRIEN
Chapter 12
Derrick Sean O’Brien was actually born Eddie Wymon O’Brien Jr. on April 4, 1975, at 2:02 A.M., to nineteen-year-old Ella Louise Walker O’Brien and twenty-four-year-old Eddie Wymon O’Brien Sr., at Rosewood General Hospital in Alief, Texas.
Eddie, who worked as a hotel maintenance worker, was not at Ella’s side when Eddie Jr. was born, because he had abandoned her two months earlier. According to Ella, Eddie could not handle the prospect of becoming a father, so he took off.
Ella O’Brien was worried that little Eddie Jr. would not make it into the world. Early on in her pregnancy, she had some serious complications that almost led to a “threatened spontaneous abortion,” or a pre-twenty-week miscarriage.
Fortunately, Eddie Jr. was born without complications and weighed a healthy seven pounds twelve ounces. Ella headed to her tiny apartment she shared with her parents at the 5800 block of Fondren Road with her son in tow. She would never hear from Eddie O’Brien again, and Eddie Jr. would grow up without his biological father.
Ella did everything in her power to create a positive environment for her baby boy. Since she was a single mother, Ella had to earn a living just to maintain basics for Eddie Jr. As a result, she
went to work as a receptionist at an office. Ella was lucky that her mother, Donna, gladly took care of little Eddie Jr. while she worked.
Eddie Jr.’s infancy was rather unremarkable, save for some difficulty with feeding. When he was three months old, it was determined Ella needed to put the baby on a soy formula. He tended to be “fussy,” possibly with a touch of colic.
Eddie Jr. remained relatively healthy until he turned eight months old. He had some difficulty breathing and was diagnosed with asthma. The doctor prescribed Theo-Dur for his condition.
Apparently, Eddie Jr.’s asthma did not prove to be much of a hindrance to the rest of his physical development. He was walking on his own by nine months.
In 1976, Ella’s divorce from Eddie O’Brien Sr. was finalized. Her ex-husband readily relinquished the majority of his parental rights to Eddie Jr. He accepted a decree that allowed him to see his son only on the first and third Sunday of each month and then only from 1:00 until 5:00 P.M. The decree also stated he had to make child support payments to Ella. Apparently, the demands were too difficult for O’Brien Sr. to handle, as he saw his son only once from 1975 until 1990. According to a Houston Independent School District evaluation, Eddie Wymon O’Brien Sr. spent the majority of that time in prison for various charges, including murder.
After the divorce, Ella O’Brien changed her name to Ella Freeman.
Soon thereafter, Ella met a nice man named Harold Jones. The couple hit it off, and Jones asked Freeman to move in with him.
There was a catch: Jones lived with his parents, and he subsequently informed Ella there was not a whole lot of room available. She would have to leave Eddie Jr. with his grandmother.
Ella readily agreed and informed her mother she would be moving out. Donna did not mind one bit. She loved Eddie Jr. dearly and eagerly agreed to take care of him.
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