2 arrested in fatal shooting of 4-year-old boy playing in Highland frontyard

The two men accused in the shooting death of a 4-year-old boy in Highland this week were tracked down because of witnesses’ help, San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials said Friday.

Sgt. Trevis Newport, who is overseeing the investigation of the killing of Daniel Munoz, said detectives were able to capture the suspects in this “true awful crime” because they were able to quickly identify the men’s getaway vehicle. “Child killings … they are hardest to investigate,” he said.

On Thursday, authorities arrested Maurice Kelley, 25, and Darron Daniels, 20, on suspicion of murder and two counts of attempted murder in the killing of Daniel, who was shot as he played with a stuffed animal in the frontyard of his grandmother’s home about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Either Kelley, Daniels or both men were targeting two people in a white car with gunfire when a stray round cut the boy down, authorities said. 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.

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

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.

Newport did acknowledge that a key part of what unfolded in the Highland neighborhood involved words that were exchanged. Asked whether the shooting could be a case of black-on-Latino violence motivated by racial animosity, Newport said, “we cannot rule that out.” He would not say what was said, citing the investigation.

Kelley had several drug-related arrests in 2008 and was subsequently convicted. Kelley was sentenced in June 2012 to three years in state prison for selling drugs and being in a criminal street gang and was ordered to serve 172 days. State prison records showed he served the sentence in the High Desert State Prison at Susanville.

Daniels pleaded no contest to fighting and using offensive words on June 23 as part of a plea bargain in which prosecutors dropped a charge of resisting arrest in August 2014.

Daniel Munoz’s killing devastated his family and rocked a neighborhood still reeling from other recent violence.

Daniel had spent Wednesday outdoors — running around the frontyard of his grandmother’s home, splashing in the plastic wading pool. He paused for a nap but when he woke, he rushed back outside to play once more, clutching a stuffed bear he called Superman.

The gun blasts rang out in quick succession. Fireworks, his family thought, as they picked fruit and watered plants in the frontyard Wednesday evening.

Daniel lay face down next to an orange tree. Blood pooled beneath his body on the dusty sidewalk. His 5-year-old cousin would later describe Daniel’s fetal position. “He was like this,” Julio Cesar Munoz said Thursday as he folded his hands under his head and leaned over.

Daniel was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Daniel, 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.

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

In October, a man who held hostage a woman and two children was fatally shot by deputies. The woman, who was found with a gunshot wound, later died. Six months earlier, a Highland couple had been 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 SMASH — San Bernardino Movement Against Street Hoodlums.

The purpose of the sweep — which included suspects in connection with burglary, vehicle theft, sex registrant 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 on $1 million bail.

Times staff writers Corina Knoll and Paloma Esquivel contributed to this story.

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna and @palomaesquivel.

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