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Grief and Struggle
A Mesa family marks the third anniversary of their son's shooting death by police
By Eduardo Barraza
BARRIOZONA
August 25, 2006
Blue and yellow flowers adorn the grave of a 15-year old boy at a cemetery in Scottsdale, Arizona. Sitting around the
gravestone –a shiny bronze plate, the parents of the deceased teenager meticulously clean his grave, and deposit a
bouquet of fresh, bright flowers in a metal vase. This is the burial place of Mario Albert Madrigal, Jr., the youth who three
years ago, on August 25, was shot and killed by three City of Mesa Police Department officers.
Mario Sr. and Martha Madrigal visited their son’s resting place to commemorate the third anniversary of his death, a date
that lingers an unfathomable and beyond healing wound in their memory and their lives. Their son’s death was a painful
and heartbreaking event in itself; the circumstances surrounding it, devastating to the extreme. In front of their very eyes,
the three police officers shot a total of 15 rounds, hitting Mario’s 115-pound body ten times. The officers’ reason: he
approached them with a kitchen knife. The parent’s reason: none.
Mario Albert’s was not an ordinary death. From the very moment of this tragic incident, the community, the authorities and
the media knew the depth of what –three years later– remains an almost polarizing issue with no healing or closure in
sight. One may think that on the third anniversary of the passing of a loved one, the wave of sorrow would have declined. In
the Madrigal’s family case, the wave keeps on taking force.
Visiting the “Preppy Boy’s” grave – as Mario Albert was nicknamed in High School–, is a terrible reminder –as terrible as it
gets– of the night when the chain of events that ended the teenager’s life began. Mario Albert’s relapse with alcohol came
back strong and unexpectedly for his parents, who just two months before had taken him to Banner Desert Behavioral
Center, in Mesa. The encouragement to keep him away from alcohol included taking Mario Albert for a vacation to the
Pacific’s coast of Mexico that same summer.
The problem thought overcome, took the Madrigal’s by surprise around midnight on August 25, 2003. A 9-11 telephone call
followed. Mario Albert hid. Another call prompted a second response by officers who were called to take him to the
behavioral center. It took only seconds for the crisis situation to escalate from a plea to help him to an astonishing finale:
Mario Albert’s death. His young and small body pierced by ten bullets, fell in the family’s dining room, between the kitchen
and the carport.
Authorities –from the Maricopa County Attorney’s office to the Mesa Police Department– concluded that the teenager
provoked his own death: he disobeyed officer’s commands to drop the kitchen knife; he advanced in a threatening manner
toward them. This was the reasoning of the three police officers who, before the door was opened by Mario Sr., had guns
drawn, ready in their hands. According to Rick Romley –the county’s attorney at the time– the killing of this small-built
teenager who was under the influence of alcohol, by three officers who shot 15 rounds in 2.2 seconds, “was justifiable
under Arizona’s law.” Richard Henry, Mark Beckett, and Sgt. Orlando Dean –the Mesa Police officers who pulled the trigger
a total of 15 times– were cleared of any wrongdoing. Romley’s statement suggested the Madrigal family did not tell the
truth, when they affirmed that Mario Albert’s body –who had been already impacted by a Taser gun– was shaking from the
effect, and falling to the ground when the rain of bullets came upon him.
Today, in the quietness of the cemetery, Mario Sr. and Martha can still hear the commotion, the screams, and the
gunshots. They still hear their child’s last words before the deafening sound of bullets being fired, agonizing echoes of not
only a tragedy, but an incomprehensible injustice that turned a simple request into a disastrous sentence, a death
sentence. They still can see their son’s face in anguish, his fragile body being massacred, his bones broken, his youthful
life departing his body. An episode they deemed so unnecessary, unjustifiable, and unbearable in their lives, and that has
prompted them to protest, to fight, and raise their voices for the last three years.
In the midst of a community that has proven largely indifferent, a local leadership virtually inexistent, and an alienating
attitude from the authorities, the Madrigal’s have continuously demonstrated in front of the police station in Mesa. A small
crowd composed of friends, members of their church’s congregation, and a group of anarchists with their own agenda,
have been the loyal minority of a family in search of justice. Signs, chants, fists raised and prayers have been the peaceful
instruments employed against a monumental injustice that appears as an impenetrable wall.
On Saturday, August 26, 2006, for the third consecutive year, the Madrigal family held a protest outside the police station.
Behind a large sign held by two young men, Mario and Martha marched around the parking lot and the southbound lane of
Hobson Street, followed by a group of approximately 75 demonstrators. The group marched around seven times,
symbolizing the seven times the Israelites marched around the biblical city of Jericho, a symbolism that also seeks a
similar and desperate effect: making the wall of injustice collapse. From above, police officers limited to look from behind
the glass windows of the police station, while TV news crews covered the protest.
Having refused to accept a financial settlement from the City of Mesa, as well as a civil trial, the Madrigal’s –both
U.S. citizens and USPS carriers– definition of justice in this case would only mean to criminally prosecute the officers
involved. They know they are dealing with the improbable, as the Mesa Police Department considers the case closed, and
the officers who killed Mario were just assigned to other areas in Mesa. This suggests that the family of Mario Albert
Madrigal, Jr., will have to live with the affront and the contradiction that their son was brutally killed by those who were called
to protect and to serve.
As Mario and Martha were getting ready to leave the cemetery the day before the protest, they observed how beautiful the
flowers looked on Mario Albert’s gravestone, and consoled each other with Bible verses. Martha quoted Revelation 21:4:
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither
shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Mario got close to the gravestone and, in tender tone
of voice, he whispered: “bye Mayito,” as he used to call his son. The sunset added a dramatic touch to their departure, as
they headed to their car, and toward their search for justice.
Copyright © 2006 Hispanic Institute of Social Issues
Grassroots Journalism
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