A Yuba City mother who held her dying teenage son moments after he was shot in the street wants answers and justice.
"It was not necessary. He was a little boy; he was just starting to grow into a man. He wasn't even 16," Carina Mendoza said Thursday, one week after her son, Matthew "Matty" Frank Gonzales, was killed.
"He was my life."
She was nearby in a parked car in front of the apartment complex where her son grew up when she saw him gunned down near Ainsley Avenue and Market Street on the afternoon of Feb. 4. Another man, whose name has not been released, suffered a nonlife-threatening wound from the shots fired from a vehicle.
"I raced over there, and I held him in my arms, and I held him. He held onto me for a minute. I was talking to him. I just told him that I loved him and that I was here and I told him, 'I got you. I got you.' I told him to hang on, don't leave me. At some point, he let go of my sweatshirt, and I knew that was it."
No arrests have been made. The Yuba City Police Department has encouraged witnesses to call officers at 822-4661. Tips can be made anonymously.
"Please," Mendoza said. "An anonymous tip is not snitching."
She saw the vehicle but cannot recall anything about it. Maybe it was gray, maybe silver.
Police have not definitively stated the shooting was gang-related. Mendoza doesn't know for sure.
"It's hard to say," she said. "I believe so, from what it looked like and sounded like. That's what they were trying to make it about. My son, his friends, he had friends that may have been affiliated, but my son was not."
She said she and Matty's dad "have friends that do stuff like that," but "it was never put in front of him."
"His way of thinking was, if you were good to him, he'd be good to you. My son was loyal to a fault."
Friends are pulling together
From the time he was 2 years old, Matty lived in the apartment complex on Ainsley, where he developed friends Mendoza said later became like family. He was the "jock out of the group."
"He was just so funny and so smart. He would come off the wall with information you didn't think he would have. He was trying to keep up with the U.S. people running for president. He'd say, 'Mom, this is important stuff.' He was sweet. He was good with kids."
He played baseball from the time he was 5 and football for Yuba City High School as a freshman last year. He loved to play sports with kids in the neighborhood, Mendoza said.
He was the baby in the family, his mother said, with three older sisters and two older brothers. All of them live out of town.
Since his death, his Ainsley friends have pulled together and raised funds for the funeral. They've raised at least $5,000 so far. Additional car washes are scheduled for today and Saturday.
"It's been all those friends, that same group, that little band of misfits. They all pulled together. I love them all. It's amazing that 16- and 17-year-olds would get together and do that. It's wonderful. They're taking responsibility," Mendoza said.
She moved her son across town, closer to Yuba City High School, just a couple of years ago.
"I wanted something bright, new and different. Just a change of pace. It was hard for him because (Ainsley) was where his friends were and his memories were."
He often returned to the complex to visit.
'I keep hoping he'll call me'
Mendoza was sitting in her car in front of the apartment building the afternoon of Feb. 4, looking for her son to take him to lunch when she saw a couple of boys standing on the corner.
"I didn't think it was him. I didn't realize he was still wearing the clothes he was wearing in the morning. He was wearing a collared shirt, and he was never wearing a collared shirt," she said.
"When I heard the noise, it sounded like there was something about it that didn't sound right. I looked in that direction and both were standing there. I thought maybe I was hearing things."
"He took a couple of steps and fell. I thought, 'Oh, now he is being a jokester. He wasn't standing up.'"
That's when she raced over.
"At one point he looked at me — and it was like he was trying to talk to me and I said, 'Baby, don't talk. Don't say anything,'" she said.
"As hard as I tried to keep my baby safe — I kept him in sports, I kept him busy and involved in other things and outdoor activities — and for this to happen? It's just, it just seems so unreal. I keep hoping he'll call me."
CONTACT reporter Monica Vaughan at 749-4783 and on Twitter @MonicaLVaughan.
