Slain teen left L.A. to escape violence

Just last week, things seemed perfect for Bernardo Alfonso Repreza and his family.

Bernardo, a sophomore at Granite High School, was doing fine in his classes. He had just become an uncle. Family members were in town to see the new baby.Then the unimaginable happened.

"We went to get a birth certificate and ended up with a death certificate," said Gordon Clayton, Bernardo's stepfather.

The 15-year-old was killed in a senseless stabbing Halloween night. He was still alive when he arrived at LDS Hospital, but the weapon had struck a major artery, giving him little chance for survival. He had lost too much blood.

Ironically, Bernardo moved to Utah from Los Angeles just four months ago in part to escape California's street violence.

"He said he was worried about getting killed and his family getting killed," said 14-year-old Jake Detorres, a friend of Bernardo's.

"He was a good boy," said his mother, Concepcion Romero, who turned 39 the day Bernardo was killed.

"I can't believe what happened. I went to the hospital and said, `Wake up. Wake up.' I couldn't believe it. He was just a skinny boy. Why would anyone want to fight him?"

While police are calling the stabbing "gang-related," Bernardo's family say he wasn't and didn't want to be a gang member.

"He wasn't a gang member and he wasn't a wanna-be," said his brother Carlos Repreza, 18. "He may have had friends who were gang members. He would be friends with anyone who would be friends with him - whether it was the school geek or a gang member."

On Halloween night, he made a decision that cost him his life. Trying to help a friend, he got into a fight he didn't start. There were gang members in the group he was with, but family members say gang affiliation isn't what started the fight. Racial slurs did.

Bernardo, his brother and a group of friends were out looking for some fun. They were at a party in Magna for a couple of hours but headed downtown after the gathering ended about 11:30 p.m.

Carlos Repreza was driving north on State Street behind another carload of friends. The two cars pulled up to 100 South just before midnight. In the first car, 19-year-old Janell Cooper sat in the passenger seat. The 20 to 30 kids on the corner near the Federal Building apparently didn't like the fact that Cooper is black, Carlos Repreza said.

"They spit towards the car and called him a (racial slur)," he said.