NEWARK, N.J. (AP/WBOC)- The attorney for the sixth and final defendant charged in the 2007 killings of three university-bound students at a Newark playground says his client was a bystander at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Gerardo Gomez, who was 15 at the time of the slayings, is the youngest of six men and boys charged in the case.
Opening statements are under way in his trial in Superior Court in Newark.
The prosecution told jurors Thursday that they would hear a case of "children killing children, and killing them with shocking violence."
Gomez was waived to adult court and faces life in prison if convicted of murder and felony murder.
Three of the defendants were convicted and two have pleaded guilty. Most were admitted members of the MS-13 street gang.
The three friends who died in the shootings, Dashon Harvey, Terrance Aeriel and Iofemi Hightower, were enrolled or planning to enroll at Delaware State University in Dover, Del.
A fourth victim who survived being shot and stabbed is not being named by The Associated Press because of sexual assault charges against two of the defendants.
