At Fort Worth vigil for teen slain at Whataburger, mother says she forgave assailants

With the people closest to him, Zechariah Trevino would share a winding story or a meal he had prepared. He was ready with a joke. Bemusing his relatives, he cared indoors for a pet chicken.

Trevino, who was 17 years old, was shot to death in a fusillade as he stood outside a Fort Worth fast food restaurant after classes ended on Friday at Paschal High School, where he was a junior.

His mother recalled him as a knight in shining armor. He was fired upon as he stood on a sidewalk, along the Whataburger’s glass façade. In front of him was a cousin, also a Paschal student, who also was shot.

His mother, Erica Trevino, said Monday that she was hurting.

She described her son at the close of a prayer service and candlelight vigil at University United Methodist Church, in a block adjacent to Paschal and Whataburger, the restaurant at 2401 W. Berry St. where he worked and was slain.

The victim’s mother said that she had forgiven the three teenagers whom police have arrested in connection with the killing.

“With everything I have in me, ” Erica Trevino said of the assailants. “And I only hope you find your way from here.”

Her son was pronounced dead at a hospital 47 minutes after he was shot.

“When Zechariah left this Earth, you know, I already forgave them on that moment that I found out. Because I have to move on for me and my family. I have to have peace,” his mother said in an interview with reporters. A couple of hundred mourners attended the vigil.

Zechariah Trevino’s injured cousin appears to have told police that a person she knows as Danny B arrived at the restaurant in sport utility vehicles with four others.

A person a redacted arrest warrant affidavit suggests is the surviving victim told police that the shooting was motivated by her public criticism of former friends who she believes were involved in the overdose death of her sister.

The affidavit describes the underpinning of the police investigation and the evidence that homicide detectives concluded exists to support the arrest in the case of three teenagers on suspicion of murder. The document redacts the name of the victim who survived. Other information in the document makes her role as an eyewitness and victim clear.

Police arrested on suspicion of murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon Daniel Reed and Isaiah Nunez, both 17, and a 16-year-old male whose name police did not release because of his age. Reed and Nunez are former Paschal students, authorities said.

Nunez walked from behind a vehicle and pulled a handgun from his waistband, the affidavit suggests. It appeared that he racked it.

Nunez shot at the female victim once and fired eight to 10 rounds at Trevino, according to the affidavit’s description of a surveillance video recording. He fired once more at the female victim while she was on the ground.

When police arrived, Trevino was just inside the restaurant’s west-facing door.