Newly released police reports suggest that 16-year-old Esteban Valenzuela, shot to death in the Maricopa Meadows Nov. 22, was the suspect in an armed assault on his brother that brought police drones and heavy firepower to that neighborhood earlier last year.
The police reports and interviews with the murder victim’s family indicate that Valenzuela was the boy accused of holding his brother at gunpoint nine months before his murder.
Maricopa Police Department responded to Valenzuela’s Dirk Street home midday Feb. 23 after Aurora Martinez, the boy’s mother, dialed 911 to report that her son had held a gun to his older brother Anthony’s head. Their sister and two young children were in the home at the time.
Anthony told the authorities that his brother entered his room “aggressively,” Officer Kennedy Wiemiller stated in one of the reports.
Anthony alleged his brother grabbed a handgun off his bed and pointed it at the side of his head and under his chin.
The police handcuffed both children and searched the home with Martinez’s consent.
Officer Rene Ordonez noted in one of the police reports that investigators found “multiple items potentially related to vehicle burglaries,” a check, a Wells Fargo debt card and two passports that didn’t belong to anyone in the house (nor did they belong to relatives). He noted there were two boxes of 9-millimeter ammunition in the laundry room.
Officer William Wetherell reported finding vape cartridges in a bag in the corner of the child’s room.
The officers then submitted charges against the child of aggravated assault, disorderly conduct and weapons misconduct. Court records in that case are sealed due to the child’s age.
Other court records show that the November murder occurred during a vape-related armed robbery. Two of four children arrested in connection to Valenzuela’s slaying are being tried as adults.
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