Family Unable to Escape Violence

NORTH HOLLYWOOD —  Three years ago Paul Youhanian’s family moved to Valencia to flee the increasing violence they saw in their North Hollywood neighborhood. Saturday night, driving through the same community they fled, the fresh-faced, 11-year-old boy who loved jet planes was shot in the head as he sat in the backseat of his mother’s minivan.

“His family originally moved from Iran to escape the violence there,” said Myron Groch, principal at Santa Clarita Elementary School, where the boy was a sixth-grader. Then they moved from North Hollywood to Valencia for the same reason, he said.

“But look what it got them.”

The boy’s death prompted police to ask for help with their investigation and city officials to offer a $25,000 reward Monday for information leading to the killer.

With no motive, police are at a standstill. “We have absolutely nothing on this case,” Los Angeles Police Det. Mike Coffey said at a news conference Monday in front of the North Hollywood police station.

The only clue police have is that the single bullet came from a high-powered gun that hit a side window on the minivan, struck the boy in the head and continued through the window on the other side.

Coffey said there is no indication that the shooting is related to the recent spree of more than 200 incidents on Southern California freeways in which car windows have been shattered, probably by marbles and air guns.

Just after 9 p.m. Saturday, while en route to visit relatives, Paul was riding in the backseat on Sherman Way just east of Whitsett Avenue. A bullet hit the side window, and his mother looked back to see her son slumped in his seat, bleeding from his head. He was rushed to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, where he was pronounced dead an hour later.

No one else was injured.

With large photos of the black-haired boy as a backdrop, police displayed the blue minivan in the state it was left after the shooting. On the front passenger seat, glass from the shattered window sprinkled a Macy’s shopping bag. Beside it was a baby tote bag containing two Mickey Mouse cars, apparently left where Paul’s 3-year-old brother had been playing with them.

On an armrest in the backseat, dried blood lingered where the boy’s head fell after he was shot.

Peering into the van, City Councilman Joel Wachs said the senseless nature of the death should compel any witness with a conscience to come forward.

“What can you get out of killing an 11-year-old boy?” Wachs asked. “Someone knows something about this, and they are probably out there bragging about it now. And everyone who hears this should be appalled. Today it’s this child, tomorrow it could be yours.”

As teachers at the boy’s school in Santa Clarita struggled to explain the shooting to Paul’s classmates Monday, his father, Benny, visited them. With a bouquet of flowers under his arm, he briefly shook off his own grief and told the children to keep their heads up and remember the good times they had shared with his son.

Principal Groch said Paul’s teachers praised the boy as an exceptionally smart and well-behaved student. His scores on the statewide CTBS test were on the 10th-grade level, four years ahead of his class. His essays described his happiness that his family had escaped a revolution in Iran.

“He had a bright future in whatever he wanted to do,” Groch said. “Paul was a friendly and quiet student, someone you would never see in my office.”

Groch said the shooting has left school officials unsure about how they can provide safety for their own students.

“I can protect them when they are here,” he said sadly. “We have gates and security for that. But how can we protect them 24 hours a day from what’s happening out there in the street?”