Suspects plead not guilty in shooting death of 4-year-old in Highland

Two men charged in the death of a 4-year-old boy who was killed by a stray bullet as he played in his grandmother’s Highland yard pleaded not guilty Monday to murder charges.

Maurice Kelley, 25, and Darron Daniels, 20, are charged with murder and two counts of attempted murder in connection with the shooting Wednesday night in the San Bernardino County city.

Prosecutors say the men were shooting at two people in another car when one of the bullets struck Daniel Munoz, who was playing with a stuffed animal in his family’s front yard.

The men are being held on $2-million bail each and are due back in court Aug. 11.

Sgt. Trevis Newport of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, who is overseeing the investigation, said detectives were able to capture the suspects in this “true awful crime” because they were able to quickly identify the getaway vehicle.

“Child killings … they are hardest to investigate,” he said.

Authorities arrested Kelley and Daniels a day after the shooting.

Newport said the people who were targeted spoke with investigators, and it appears the shooting wasn’t the result of a road-rage confrontation.

The intended targets of the gunfire do not know Kelley or Daniels, Newport said.

“We don’t believe they did anything to provoke the shooting,” he said.

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Investigators said Kelley and Daniels have gang ties and that Kelley previously admitted to gang membership in court, but they could not say whether those affiliations were a motive in the shooting.

Daniel Munoz, who lived with his family in Rialto, had wanted to go to Knott’s Berry Farm that day with an older sibling and cousins, who were being chaperoned by his mother, Yuliana Morales, but there wasn’t enough room in the van. Morales made a promise: Next time it would be his turn.

But Daniel’s grandmother said she feels her own burden of blame.

A day after the shooting, Ramona Perez struggled to speak about the loss of the boy with the brown eyes and toothy smile. She said she will never make sense of what happened — her grandson, she said, only wanted to play.

Now his mother can’t shake the guilt. “It’s my fault for leaving him here,” Morales told The Times.

“I don’t know why people do evil things like this,” she said.

Highland, a city of about 54,000 about 70 mile east of L.A. in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains, sees its share of violence, said neighbors who stopped by Thursday to offer comfort to the family.

In October, a man who held a woman and two children hostage was shot and killed by deputies. The woman, who was found with a gunshot wound, later died. Six months earlier, a Highland couple was found slain inside their home.

In an attempt to address increasing violent crime in the region, authorities last year arrested 102 individuals in Highland during an operation called San Bernardino Movement Against Street Hoodlums, or SMASH.

The purpose of the sweep — which included suspects in connection with burglary, vehicle theft, sex registration violations, narcotics sales and weapons violations — was to target and identify gang members within the city, according to a San Bernardino County sheriff’s statement.

In December, authorities in Highland and San Bernardino arrested 33 known members of the Crips and Bloods in their communities.

“There is a problem and the problem is not being solved,” said Edgar Smith, who lost two sons — ages 18 and 31 — to gun violence within the last year. One was killed in Highland, the other in San Bernardino.

Smith’s wife, Denise, said Daniel’s death raised the issue of every parent’s fundamental right:

“Your children should be able to come out in their yard and play freely without you being worried about them being hurt or shot.”

Witness interviews and search warrants led detectives to Kelley and Daniels as suspects in Daniel’s killing, officials said. The pair are scheduled to be arraigned Monday, jail records show. They are being held in lieu of $1-million bail.

Times staff writers Richard Winton, Corina Knoll and Paloma Esquivel contributed to this report.

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