In the early morning of a warm, muggy day in June 1993, two young men, still in their teens, died in a blaze of gunfire on a deserted street in Pasadena, Texas, and two others became murderers.
It all happened in the seconds it took a young man to pull the trigger of a semiautomatic M-1 carbine four times.
To most people in Pasadena, an industrial suburb of Houston, the shooting was just another news story of kids killing kids. And the murder weapon–an M-1 carbine built for the U.S. military in World War II and classified as a collector’s item–was mentioned only in passing.
In fact, the M-1 carbine is a weapon that has been carried into street battle, having been used in at least 30 murders this decade, including those of 10 police officers, according to a Tribune analysis. They are available to almost anyone, anywhere, through gun shops and gun shows and on the Internet.
Like hundreds of other M-1 carbines used in crimes, the one fired on the streets of Pasadena that night had been made in World War II for the U.S. military. Exactly how the rifle, which was milled in 1944 by the Underwood Co., left the control of the military is unknown. But it ended up being fired at point-blank range in a senseless shooting.
Despite the efforts of the U.S. Congress and the military to stop the flow of military arms such as the M-1 carbine to civilians, the weapons have consistently turned up on the streets through ill-managed government programs that sell usable guns, parts and scrap, and by the resale of U.S. military guns by foreign countries.
The military only began recording the disposition of surplus weapons in 1974, leaving hundreds of thousands of weapons unaccounted for. There is still no system to trace what happens to the guns after they leave the military depots.
This M-1 carbine was stolen a few weeks before the shooting. Chris Minton and Dion Garcia, 19-year-old high school dropouts, broke into the home of a former schoolmate and took the M-1 that was a hand-me-down from the schoolmate’s grandfather. They left seven other guns undisturbed in the cabinet.
Minton would say in an interview with the Tribune that they needed the gun for protection because they had been involved in fights at school.
What happened next has been pieced together with court records and interviews.
On Saturday, June 12, Minton, Garcia and another friend, Daniel Atkins, got their first inkling of the M-1’s power when Minton shot up an old billboard in an abandoned industrial area of the city. The bullets ripped right through the wooden sign and disappeared.
Later that night, they listened to rap music as they cruised the freeways, in a convertible that Atkins’ mother had rented for the day as a graduation present. Atkins was driving, and Minton was in the passenger seat beside him. Garcia sat in the back with the rifle on the floor.
They headed for home, and as they approached the entrance of the subdivision where they lived, they saw three teenagers in a car in the parking lot of a closed convenience store.
The boys, Damon Turner, 17, Chris Flores, 18, and Eloy Valdez, 16, were waiting for three girls.
As the convertible went by, both groups exchanged jeers and name calling. It was kid stuff, and Atkins drove on.
“Let’s go back and kick their asses,” Minton recalled saying. “Let’s give them a scare.”
Atkins drove around the block and came down the street again.
From the back seat, Garcia passed the gun to Minton, who rested the rifle on the lowered window, pointed in the direction of the three teenagers.
Atkins stopped the car. Valdez shouted at Atkins and his friends, asking them what they wanted.
Then he saw the gun.
“What are you going to do now, shoot us?” Valdez asked.
Nothing further was said. Less than 20 feet separated Valdez and his friends from the M-1 carbine.
The stillness of the night was broken by loud booms as Minton squeezed off four shots in rapid succession.
The power of the 49-year-old gun was immediately evident.
The first bullet struck Turner in the waist, slicing through the soft tissue of his stomach and striking the wall behind him. He was knocked to the ground.
The second struck Valdez in the chest. That bullet, too, passed through and hit the wall.
The third bullet ricocheted off the metal portion of the headrest on the car seat, and the fourth hit Flores in the neck.
There was panic in the convertible as Atkins sped away. No one looked back.
“Damn, I just can’t believe it,” Minton said. Atkins asked Minton why he fired, and he said that he didn’t know.
Valdez and Flores died. Turner survived. His description of the car later led police to Atkins and Minton.
Like many Pasadena residents, Fire Capt. Alan Martin, the first paramedic on the scene, was familiar with the M-1 carbine. He was a licensed gun dealer who bought military rifles and parts.
At the time of the shooting, Martin had rebuilt and sold 10 M-1 carbines from kits he bought through distributors of military surplus weapons.
Minton’s attorney, John Emmett Crow, was also familiar with the weapon. Years before, he got one in payment from a client.
Before he took the gun, Crow said, he checked to make sure that it wasn’t stolen or hadn’t been used in a crime. But law enforcement officials say it is difficult to be sure of either.
Minton was sentenced to life for the slayings, and Atkins to 15 years.
Prosecutors dropped the murder charge against Garcia, but he was placed on 10 years probation for the gun theft.
After more than four years behind bars, Atkins still vividly recalls the night of the murders.
“It was dark that night, we really never saw who they were,” Atkins said in a prison interview. “It turned out that Eloy worked at Kroger’s with me and we played ball in Damon’s yard.
“If it hadn’t been for the gun and we’d of got out to fight them, we’d of known who it was, and we’d of said, `Hey, how’re ya doin’? What’s up?’ “
