FROM THE FISTS OF BABES

By Anastasia Toufexis

Some crimes stun the mind, others sear the soul. In Richmond, California, last week, townspeople were agonizing over the savage beating of a one-month-old baby. Ignacio Bermudez Jr. was dumped from his bassinet, pummeled with fists, kicked and possibly hit with a stick, leaving his skull cracked. His alleged assailants? Twin brothers, age 8, and the suspected ringleader, a boy of 6, who were playmates of Ignacio's siblings. "This is as shocking a crime as we have seen," said Richmond police captain Ray Howard.

Police initially believed the tragedy grew out of a theft. Under questioning, the boys tearfully admitted entering the Bermudez family's apartment to steal a Big Wheel-style tricycle. While searching for the toy, they discovered the infant and, for no apparent reason, beat him hard enough to fracture his skull and cause severe internal bleeding. Then they dropped him on the bed and fled with the tricycle. Maria Bermudez, who was babysitting her step-brother, discovered his bruised and limp body when she came out of the bathroom.

But neighbors say the six-year-old had been making threats against little Ignacio. According to them, said prosecutor Harold Jewett, he "previously expressed the belief that the family there had been harassing him, looked at him the wrong way and he had to kill the baby."

Devastated residents struggled to explain how children so young could commit so horrifying an act. Their area of Richmond, an industrial city outside of Oakland, is poor and tough but not violence-ridden. "It's a predominantly quiet street," Ophelia Stringer told the Mercury News. "It's not all shooting and drugs. It bothers us that all people say we're in gangs and have dysfunctional families. It's not true. We're normal people." Agreed police sergeant Mike Walter: "This is not the sort of neighborhood where we've had this sort of thing before; there have been no prior calls of domestic violence for any of the families involved."

Some neighbors point out that the three boys, whose fathers have died and who are being raised by single mothers, did not seem well supervised and wandered the streets into the evening. The twins reportedly got in fights and took penknives to school, while the six-year-old was said to be a bully and troublemaker, entering homes and backyards to steal things and pulling a boy's hair until he cried. "He always had a stick or something, and was trying to get us when we rode our bikes," Jorge Ponce, 13, told the Mercury News. "He'd hit me or hit my bike, and I would be telling him to stop."

Still, almost everyone found it hard to believe that any of the three could do anything so vicious. "This is what hurts me the most. They don't have an explanation,'' says the baby's father Ignacio. "What can you say about a child who is barely 30 days old? He can't do any harm to anyone." At week's end the battered infant was on life support in critical condition, his prognosis uncertain. His accused attackers were arraigned in juvenile court on charges of burglary; the six-year-old was also charged with attempted murder. He may be the youngest person in the U.S. to be so accused. The judicial system has few guidelines for dealing with such youthful offenders. If convicted, the boy could be placed in foster care or a specialized group home.

--By Anastasia Toufexis. Reported by J. Howard Green/San Francisco

With reporting by J. HOWARD GREEN/SAN FRANCISCO