‘I never thought this could happen here’

Barbara Privett recalled what she and her husband were told before they bought their home in Summerlin seven years ago: It's the ideal neighborhood in which to raise a family. The schools were new, there were beautiful recreation facilities and, most important of all, it was safe.

On Sunday, an exhausted Privett was trying to decide when to hold a funeral for her 15-year-old son, Christopher, an honor student felled two days earlier in a drive-by shooting near Palo Verde High School.

Red-eyed from both crying and a lack of sleep, she stared at her son's picture on the kitchen table and spoke in a monotone.

"I never thought this could happen here," she said. "He was just walking home from school with his friends in a nice neighborhood. This is such a pretty place."

Las Vegas police arrested a 16-year-old Palo Verde sophomore early Saturday in connection

with the slaying on Alta Drive.

Sources familiar with the investigation said the suspect was Gerald Davidson, though they were not certain of the spelling of his name. Police have not given a motive for the violence that occurred shortly before 2 p.m.

The triggerman was traveling in a car with four other people at the time of the shooting: two female students at Palo Verde and two young men who never attended the school. None of the four others had been arrested as of Saturday. Deputy Chief Ted Moody said no further information on the case was available Sunday.

The suspect was booked into the Clark County juvenile detention center on one count of murder with a deadly weapon; three counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon; and four counts of firing a weapon from a moving vehicle.

Privett said she believes she no longer can allow her 16-year-old son, Alex, to walk home from school.

"We only live about a block and a half from school but I can't take the chance of him getting killed, too," she said. "I'm going to take my lunch hour when it's time for him to leave school and drive him home. I can't lose two sons."

One of the three teenagers walking with Christopher along Alta, just east of Pavilion Center Drive, said Sunday that no words were exchanged before the shooting that killed his friend.

"The shot that killed Chris went through another friend's backpack and right into Chris' heart," the teen said. "The last thing he said was, 'I've been hit,' and then he started to fall. I caught him before he fell and laid him down."

One thing Privett wants made clear is that her son was not part of any gang. Police had no early indications that anyone involved in the shooting had gang ties.

"Christopher was no trouble," Privett said. "He always got good grades and was a happy kid. He had friends over after school all the time."

Separated from her husband, Privett, an office manager for a law firm, moved into an apartment near Palo Verde after her Summerlin home was sold. In addition to Alex, she has two grown children.

"I moved to this apartment because I didn't want my sons to have to go far to school," she said. "I was sure this would be safe."

Though Privett said her son hadn't speculated about what he wanted to do as an adult, the friend who was with Christopher when he was shot said he talked about becoming a firefighter.

"He also liked to listen to Snoop Dogg," he said.

"My son really enjoyed school," Privett said of her son, who preferred others to call him Chris, rather than Christopher.

"To me he was always Christopher and he'd always say, 'Oh, mom,'" Privett said, tears welling in her eyes as she smiled. "He knew he'd always be my Christopher."

A 5-foot, 7-inch, 150-pound center on Palo Verde's freshman football team, Christopher was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.

His mother hailed from Pennsylvania and her parents still live there.

"See how he loved the Steelers," Privett said, pointing to his bedroom with a yellow-and-black Steelers bedspread and players' photographs on the wall, including quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and former linebacker Jack Lambert. A Steelers souvenir helmet sat on the bed.

For his mother's recent 50th birthday, Christopher had wanted to get her a Steelers license plate frame for her car.

"He couldn't find one so he got me a Pittsburgh Pirates one instead," his mother said.

As she stood in her son's room, she noticed he had left some homework for health class in his night stand.

"He was something," she said, looking at the paper. "He didn't have to work hard to get A's and B's."

Alex Privett found it almost impossible to talk about his brother, a year and two days younger than him.

"We played with toys and video games when we were young, and sports when we were older," he said.

Christopher was born in Idaho Falls and moved to Las Vegas with his family in the second grade. He enjoyed reading literature and writing themes as he grew older, his mother said. He played the bass clarinet for two years in middle school.

"It wasn't something he practiced a lot so he gave it up," his mother said, half smiling. "English was his favorite subject. He didn't like math that much."

Pacing between her son's room and the dining room, she said she can't believe young people won't give up on violence and guns.

"The police told me that maybe the shots were fired just to scare somebody," she said. "But don't they understand there can be consequences? The way things are now it doesn't matter where you live. Violence can happen anywhere."

She had initially been told by school authorities that her son was taken to University Medical Center. After she arrived there, however, she learned her son was taken to Summerlin Hospital. By Sunday afternoon, she still hadn't seen her son's body.

"They said they had to do an autopsy Saturday," she said. "Maybe that's why I still find it so hard to believe this happened. Maybe after I see his body it will really hit me."

Relatives from Pennsylvania have been arriving all weekend to try to comfort Privett.

"I'm 80," said Stewart Opel, Christopher's grandfather. "I wish I had been taken instead."

What Barbara Privett wants, she knows she can never have again.

"I want to see him with that big smile on his face as he waves to me on his way to school."

Review-Journal writer Antonio Planas contributed to this report. Contact reporter Paul Harasim at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-2908.