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'Never the same'
Family still struggles with brutal murder of beloved son.
By Penny Falcon
The Beacon-News, Aurora
Published Oct. 31, 1999
Five years, it took.
Maybe there was a reason why, because when Rita Mendez finally traveled the four-lane stretch of blacktop that led to her son's death, what she saw tore another hole in her soul.
At night, this stretch of New York Street is a patch of bright and dark, with houses and hair shops and gas stations waiting to feed hungry cars.
Vehicles roll past. Conversations mingle in the crisp air. Customers buy cigarettes and pump petrol.
"I passed the spot where he stopped the car," says Rita of her son. "Where he ran to. Where he beat on the gas station door.
"I see a place so full of people, so much light.
"Why didn't God put someone in his path to help him? Why did no one do anything?"
It's been five years since Armando Mendez was beaten and executed. Yet, even with the killers' arrests, all the trials, all the days that stretched into months, then into years, time has not healed the Mendez family.
And, say the family members, maybe it never will.
Vicious attack
On Oct. 27, 1994, a fistful of black men was hanging out on East New York
Street when Armando Mendez's car coughed to a stop.
As the 19-year-old Auroran hiked to the gas station, then back to the aging auto with a can of fuel, they decided his "kind" didn't belong there. They attacked the young Hispanic, who tried to escape as the wilding pack grew.
At the gas station, where Armando sought refuge, an attendant bolted
the door, then watched as the men took turns thrashing the young man, banging
his head against the building, beating him with beer bottles and a garbage
can. When the beasts had had their fill, one of them, Bonzell Joyner, pulled
Armando up by the hair, then fired a shot into his head.
By all accounts, Armando was a young man on the verge of becoming someone.
He balanced his time between work at the Cracker Barrel restaurant and the
College of DuPage, where he was studying to be an architect. He lived with
his mom and dad and siblings in the modest trappings of an immigrant neighborhood
on Aurora's East Side.
"Armando was a lot more than a brother," said younger brother Eddie at the sentencing hearing for the man who shot Armando. "He was my friend. He was my role model -- someone I could look up to."
The funny one
Each of Eduardo and Rita's four children had their own personality - and Armando's was that of the entertainer.
"He came across as quiet when he first met people," says sister Elsa, 27, "but, once he felt comfortable, he was very rowdy. He had a sense of humor."
Armando was the one who would organize the family activities, the one who was in tune with what his parents wanted and needed.
He also was the one who brought balance to older brother Roberto's life. The two boys were always competing in something: jobs, sports, even with girls.
"I miss that," says Roberto, 25. "It kept us striving for the better things in life. You take it for granted when it's there."
As a baby, Armando almost didn't survive. A tumor nestled in his throat, then began growing and spreading. He almost suffocated before doctors discovered the cause of his high fevers and restless nature. He was still a toddler when the Mendezes moved from California to Aurora to join relatives.
As a child, Armando wanted to know everything. If he saw a radio, he wanted to take it apart. If he saw a book, he wanted to leaf through the pages.
Rita remembers all of the threshold moments.
The day he was released from the hospital.
The first day of school, when he came home with a drawing of his sister.
The day he asked to be a paperboy.
The first money he earned -- "Half for you, half for me," he said.
She remembers the winning games, his First Communion, the day he asked To borrow the car so he could take a date to prom.
"He was so happy; he was a man," she says.
No answers
And she remembers the night he was killed.
Rita says the way she learned was "of the form most cruel."
A typical mom, she could never sleep until the last child was in the house. When he didn't show at 10:45, she assumed the traffic had slowed his journey.
She was drowsing on the couch when the door bell rang. She saw a shadowy figure through the curtains, and then, the glint of a badge at his chest. The officer's questions began as soon as she opened the door.
"Did Armando drive this car?" What problems did he have? Did he have any money with him?"
Thousands of questions until finally, an answer.
"Armando's dead."
"My mind turned black," Rita says. "It can't be my son," she remembers thinking. "It has to be someone else's.
"I wanted to run . . . to help him. I didn't know if it was day or night. I just wanted to run and find my son. It was so much pain, I didn't want to believe."
The kids woke up when the screaming started.
Roberto says that, when he asked what was going on, the police told him his brother was in the morgue.
Then, the theories were played out for the Mendez family.
"They had assumed he was in a car chase, or it must have been a drug deal gone bad, or he gave the wrong gang sign," recalls Roberto. "We were hounding them for an explanation, and what they came up with was ludicrous.
"That made the experience all that much more worse. Sitting there, trying to defend Armando, was a really tough thing."
Seeking justice
On the heels of the truth came cameras and reporters and influential people looking to put a spin on the slaying.
"A lot of the city officials stopped by the house. They were using our story as a platform, playing to the newspapers," recalls Roberto. "Our family was crushed."
However, they played along.
Elsa and Roberto spoke at rallies, decrying the brutal crime and begging a community to act.
When Moshe Rogers, a 17-year-old with similar promise, was slain four
months later, community leaders formed Project Unity as a guide for neighborhoods
looking for ways to combat crime, and family members traveled
to the state Capitol to push for the passage of the Safe Neighborhoods Bill.
There was little, though, the family could do to sway opinion in the courts, as one after another of the accused men went on trial.
In all, 10 men were arrested in the murder of Armando Mendez. Most lived within blocks of the family's home.
Two of the accused turned state's evidence. A third was acquitted after
a jury trial. Plea bargains softened the blow for four more. Five remain
in prison today. A sixth, who was a juvenile at the time of Armando's death,
is serving time for an unrelated conviction.
Rita and Eduardo were there through most of the court appearances, continuances, trials, sentencing hearings.
For four years -- sometimes once a week, sometimes twice a week, sometimes
even more -- Eduardo would leave his graveyard shift and head for the courthouse.
Rita would work overtime at her seamstress job so she could
make up the time spent in court.
It was here that she learned more about the horror that her son endured.
Her limited English cushioned the truth.
"If I could have understood everything, I don't think I could have stayed in the courtroom," she says.
Protecting the criminal
Here is also where the Mendez family learned about the machinations of
justice: That a criminal can be very criminal, but the jury doesn't get
to hear about it. That testimony can be twisted to say so many things. That
witnesses can be explained away with fancy words and pretty prose.
"It's easier to explain lies than it is to prove good," says Rita.
The events that stain Armando's memory most, says Rita, occurred in the courtroom, when the family looked into the eyes of the men accused.
"Having to be face to face with these people . . . they looked at me with hate," she says. "They gave me the impression that we were the aggressors, and they were the victims.
"I would hear the defense attorney defend the criminals; the coldness with which they prepared the evidence to protect them. They gave the impression they were protecting celebrities."
By then, the Mendez family was wrestling its own demons.
Elsa says culture played an important part in the family rift. She and
Roberto mourned by drawing friends close, immersing themselves in activities.
Mom and Dad mourned differently, insulating themselves from
everyone and everything.
"It caused a lot of conflict down the line," says Elsa, "but then, it did bring us closer together."
How God played in this tragedy also came into question.
Roberto and Elsa grew angry at a God who could allow this to happen. At first, Rita decided the Lord had abandoned her and wanted her own life to end, and Eduardo, always stoic and secluded, wrapped himself in his grief.
"It was especially hard for my dad," says Elsa. "I would come home when I wasn't expected and would find him crying. When he saw me, he would turn away."
Moving on
With each court date, Rita grew more concerned about her children.
Every time they would leave to go to work or school, she worried they might not return.
Roberto says his mom suggested he move to be safe. She says he moved to escape the pain.
Either way, Roberto ended up in Alaska with relatives, and Elsa decided that she, too, needed to get away.
The home that once was so full of life had turned into a house.
"It's like moving on with an anchor," is how Eddie, now 17, explained it in court. "The family itself . . . it wasn't the same. It was never the same."
Roberto says he will never move back to Aurora because "the total lack of respect for life there is astonishing."
Elsa sees things differently. She remembers the court-watchers, the community advocates, the strangers who comforted her in her pain.
"There's a lot of good people in Aurora, in our community," she says. "That made a difference in our lives."
The Mendez family also hopes that Armando's death has made a difference in this community.
In the level of tolerance.
In the level of awareness.
In the level of caring.
Rita believes it has, and she tells that to her son when she visits Mt. Olive Cemetery, where his body is buried. She goes often, sitting and praying until the sun rests behind the trees.
"My heart didn't die," she says, "but my life has been changed.
"From the moment my son died, it destroyed my family."
A scholarship fund has been created in Armando Mendez's name. To donate, send checks or money orders to the Aurora Foundation at 111 W. Downer Place, Suite 312, Aurora, IL 60506. For more information, call (630) 896-7800.