Boy Dies Defending iPad Father Gave Him

A boy has died defending the iPad his father gave him for his fifteenth birthday, according to a recent report from the L.A. Times.

Marcos Arenas was an athlete and at one time a choir singer at Garside Junior High School. One Friday afternoon earlier this month, he was walking home with the used iPad his struggling father had recently purchased from a pawn shop.

Surveillance video showed two men tailing the boy in a Ford Explorer. It was at Charleston Boulevard, a low-income area of Las Vegas, that the men pulled alongside Arenas and attempted to wrest the device from his hands.

The 15-year-old high school freshman fought his adult assailants, but as the Explorer sped away, The Huffington Post noted, Arenas was caught under its wheels.

Father Ivan Arenas buried his son one week later.

“He battled for what was his … I know Marcos would have fought anyone for that iPad,” Ivan said.

The alleged killers of the boy who died defending his iPad were 18-year-old Jacob Dismont and 21-year-old Michael Samuel Solid. At a bail hearing last week, prosecutor Robert Daskas referred to the duo as “lions on the Serengeti, waiting to pounce, to ambush the smallest member of a pack.”

Daskas continued: “They had an orchestrated, preconceived plan to rob this 15-year-old.” As a result, the state is pursuing charges of robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, and first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon.

Since the perpetrators allegedly changed tires and placed fake license plates on the truck following the death of Marcos Arenas, prosecutors are hoping to make the first-degree murder charge stick.

What happened to the boy who died defending his iPad was something becoming so common there’s a name for it: “Apple picking.” Put simply, it involves theft of iPhones, iPods, iPads, and other lightweight gadgets easy to resell.

“These cowards will snatch the products out people’s hands while they’re using them,” explained Bill Cassell, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokesman.

“For us,” Ivan Arenas said, “that thing was just an iPad. But for Marcos, it was something his daddy worked hard to get him. He knew what I was going through. We didn’t have a lot. If he had something nice, he’d treasure it.”

This incident follows a string of outrage-inducing crimes against teenagers that include a 19-year-old who was gunned down in September while waiting in line to buy a pair of shoes and Hadiya Pendleton, the Chicago teen who was shot and killed after performing at President Obama’s inauguration.

In a similarity to the case of Marcos Arenas, Pendleton’s alleged killers were 18-year-old Michael Ward and 20-year-old Kenneth Williams.

Do you think the men accused of killing the boy who died defending his iPad should be charged with first-degree murder?

[Image via ShutterStock]