Jorge Galindo is frustrated.
"I still feel like, 'What did I do wrong, what I need to do to prevent this,'" he said.
Galindo was a mentor to a 14-year-old boy, named David, who was shot and killed Wednesday outside of an apartment. And police say a 13-year-old pulled the trigger.
"We try to save every kid, but we can't," said Galindo.
Galindo helps kids like David get involved in sports and volunteering to keep them from being recruited by gangs. He said David was not in a gang and he helped volunteer at an organization for youth called Hand in Hand in Everett. Todd McNeal is the executive director.
"He was coming and working with little kids at horizon elementary school, and the thing that I appreciated about David is that he would do the dirty work. He didn't care," said McNeal.
McNeal was distraught when he found out David was shot and killed. But he says he was also discouraged by some of what he calls negative assumptions.
"I'm scared because he grew up in an impoverished neighborhood and because he was a kid of color that people are going to make assumptions that he was someone that he wasn't and we do that in our community. He was a good boy. He was a smart boy; he was a giving boy."
For Galindo, he hopes what happened to David will be a wakeup call.
"I hope the community opens up more about paying attention to our kids," said Galindo.
