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Drive-by victim mourned

'It's not even the bad kids who are getting shot,' his father said. 'Dominic was just in the wrong place.'

Felix Doligosa Jr., Rocky Mountain News

Published February 24, 2007 at midnight

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As hundreds of people left the cemetery where Dominic Paul Gonzales was to be buried, one cousin stayed behind.

Tim Bentanquez approached the coffin and tossed a red rose and a white rose into the grave.

"He will lay on love and purity instead of dirt," said Bentanquez. "Dominic should not be here."

Gonzales was shot the night of Feb. 17 in the 4700 block of Beach Court in Denver, near Interstate 70 and Federal Boulevard.

He had turned 18 just three days earlier and had gotten his prized driver's license. He was, his family said, a responsible young man who looked forward to graduating from high school and going to college.

On the night he was shot, Gonzales had driven to a friend's house in the green 2001 Saturn his father had given him for his birthday. He and his buddies were planning to go to the movies.

"He had words with somebody in a car. Shots were fired, and he was struck," said Sonny Jackson, a Denver police spokesman. Investigators said the shooting is not gang-related. No arrests have been made.

"It angers me," said Larry Gonzales, Dominic's father. "It's not even the bad kids who are getting shot. . . . Dominic was just in the wrong place."

More than 200 people packed Denver's St. Joseph Catholic Church on Friday for the funeral. Friends wore white T-shirts with the teen's picture, and family members wore dog tags with his photo.

Gonzales wasn't in a gang, family members said. He was born in Denver and grew up in his grandparents' home in the Baker neighborhood. He recently moved in with his mother in southeast Denver.

He attended West High and played football and baseball.

Gonzales got above-average grades. This year, as a senior, he enrolled in the smaller Colorado High School because he wanted to concentrate on math, a subject he did not enjoy.

At the funeral, his high school presented an honorary degree to his parents.

"He's looking down from heaven, and I know he's the happiest young man up there," said his grandfather Larry Gonzales Sr.

Dominic Gonzales wanted to go to college and become a police officer.

He also wanted "to start a family and have kids in a nice big house," said his mother, Andrea Rawson.

At the cemetery in Wheat Ridge, Bentanquez bowed his head and rolled his wheelchair toward the coffin to say a prayer. Twenty-five years ago, Bentanquez was shot in the back while walking on Santa Fe Drive near West Sixth Avenue.

"Lord, just keep him and I will see him again," Bentanquez said. "I will walk with you when I see you."

To donate to the Dominic Paul Gonzales Fund, contact any Wells Fargo Bank.

or 303-954-2970