Slain teen had football dreams

At 6 feet tall and 180 pounds, De'Arney Austin wasn't your average 14-year-old.

The Brinley Middle School eighth-grader was a star linebacker with the Nevada Youth Football League. He was known for his huge smile and even bigger appetite and hoped one day to attend college in Florida before going on to play for the NFL's Miami Dolphins, his favorite team.

"All he wanted to do was play football," Jasinta Austin said of her son.

But that gridiron dream was destroyed about 1:30 a.m. Nov. 1, when De'Arney was gunned down while walking home from a Halloween party.

He and a 15-year-old friend were on the corner of Ullom Drive and Sawyer Avenue, near Rancho Drive and Decatur Boulevard, when two men pulled alongside them in a vehicle. The assailants robbed the 15-year-old of an iPod and then shot De'Arney multiple times, De'Arney's relatives said.

The 15-year-old said he ran while being shot at. He also told the Review-Journal that De'Arney told the men that he was a member of the Squad Up hybrid gang.

De'Arney's family doesn't believe that. His mother said De'Arney wasn't involved in any gang activity and kept out of trouble.

She also questioned how, if the incident did happen the way the older teen described, he got away without a scratch.

Speaking at the family's house on Thursday near Smoke Ranch Road and Decatur, Austin wept when she talked about her son. Half-black and half-Samoan, De'Arney moved with his family to Las Vegas from Honolulu when he was 4 years old.

With the help of his family, he maintained a Hawaiian attitude toward people.

"He was friends with everyone and treated everyone with respect. He had the aloha spirit," his mother said.

Police initially suspected De'Arney was killed as part of a robbery.

But Lt. Lew Roberts of the Las Vegas police's homicide unit said Thursday that police now are looking into whether De'Arney's killing was connected to the slaying of 19-year-old Jamal Hill, who was shot and killed at a party in North Las Vegas about an hour before De'Arney was shot.

Police hadn't reported any arrests in either shooting as of Thursday night.

One thing Roberts said he was certain of, however, was that De'Arney was "a teen who shouldn't be dead."

That also was the sentiment at Austin's home, which was filled with relatives who had flown in from Hawaii. De'Arney's aunts, grandparents and brothers and sisters fondly remembered the broad-shouldered and athletic teen who had shown so much early promise in sports and spent most of his free time playing football.

"That was my partner. Everything I did, he did," said Chris Falaniko, De'Arney's 15-year-old brother.

De'Arney's death also has upset the community at large. Staff at Brinley sent condolences to the family and dozens of De'Arney's friends signed his football jersey, which the teen's family proudly displayed inside their house.

At 6 p.m. today, about 100 teens as well as church members, community leaders, police and parents are to gather in front of De'Arney's house in the 5700 block of Condor Avenue, Troy Martinez, an organizer of the event, said.

The teens will be speaking out against violence, Martinez said.

The gathering is part of the Safe Village initiative, a community project aimed at curbing violence in West Las Vegas.

Contact reporter David Kihara at dkihara@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-4638.