Youth, 14, Sentenced in Slaying of 9-Year-Old

A 14-year-old Glendale youth convicted of shooting a younger boy to death was ordered Friday to serve detention with the California Youth Authority.

The boy, whose name was withheld because he is a minor, used his father’s .38-caliber revolver to shoot fourth-grader Sang Lee, 9, in the chest Aug. 12. The blast severed the boy’s spine.

The teen-ager, who could be incarcerated until age 25 or released earlier depending on his behavior, was convicted April 6 of second-degree murder.

Police reports suggested that he had planned to scare the younger boy by pulling the trigger a second time after the gun failed to fire the first time.

During his disposition hearing Friday, the youth sat silently in court with his head bowed, never looking up.

A California Youth Authority doctor said in a diagnostic report that such behavior indicates that the boy lacks conscience or remorse and has possible sociopathic tendencies. But Juvenile Court Commissioner Karen J. Nudell, in ordering the boy to detention, noted that the behavior also could be cultural.

“His mother and father have sat in similar positions throughout the case,” she said. The boy’s parents were sitting with a Korean language translator who interpreted the proceedings for them.

Nonetheless, Nudell said, the nature of the crime and diagnostic reports show that the youth is “definitely in need of counseling.” She ordered that he receive intensive therapy while in custody.

The dead boy’s father, Chan Lee, 47, a Compton market owner, said outside the courtroom that his son had been mistreated by the older boy.

His son had been tied up, pushed to the ground and robbed by the older boy, Lee said. He said his son told him that the older boy had drawn his father’s weapon on previous occasions.

Shortly before his son died, Lee quit working as a carpenter to open a fish market in Reseda. He said he wanted his son to someday inherit a business. His son had named the market Fish Town, which has since been renamed and is operating in Compton., Lee said.

The fish market became “the business that he never saw,” the father said.