A Fresno mom in mourning said Friday local investigators and the state’s juvenile justice system failed her son — the same day the 13-year-old who shot the son was remanded into custody for a juvenile sentence.
Edgar Hernandez, 19, was shot about 8 p.m. June 23 inside an apartment near Barstow and Brawley avenues, but he couldn’t be immediately found by officers, according to police. It wasn’t until about 20 minutes later that a second 911 call reported a more accurate location, leading officers to the teen.
He died about four hours after the shooting, according to Emma Infante, Hernandez’s mother. She said he wasn’t taken to a hospital for about an hour after he was shot, and she said others in the apartment could have helped save his life.
“(Detectives) already got the shooter, and they don’t want to investigate more. There were more people,” the 34-year-old said. “There were more adults. They got rid of the firearm. They left my son there to pretty much die on his own, and they’re still not being looked at.”
Police announced the next day they had arrested a 13-year-old for the fatal shooting, saying the incident was a manslaughter case and not a homicide. His attorney declined a request for comment from The Fresno Bee citing the sensitive nature of juvenile cases.
The teen agreed to a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter that was finalized in a hearing at the Fresno County Juvenile Justice Center held by juvenile court Judge Amythest Freeman on Friday. The teen was remanded to 365 days in the New Horizons Program, a rehabilitation program at the Fresno County Juvenile Justice Center.
Infante said she believes the investigation should have been more thorough, pointing to a case that appears to have come to an end in less than three months and has not led to the arrest of anyone else at the apartment on the day of the shooting.
“Hours later, the kid showed up saying that he was the shooter,” she said. “How do you know that he was actually the one who did it, and he didn’t do it for someone, or he wasn’t influenced by someone? (A) lot of things could have happened, but they are just going based on what he said, and they’re leaving it at that.”
The judge noted that the arrest and custody of the 13-year-old does not necessarily mean police are not investigating other potential suspects.
Discussing the facts in a juvenile case can be difficult for prosecutors, because state law provides more privacy protections to young offenders than to adults, according to Taylor Long, spokesperson for the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office.
She said prosecutors “respect their grief and frustration” and understand the family has experienced a great loss. She noted the office made its charging decision on the evidence in the Fresno Police Department case.
“That charging decision reflected the evidence available to our office, which did not establish the intent required for a murder charge,” she said. “We are ethically obligated to make charging decisions based on the evidence and the law.”
Many cases involving a minor can linger for months if not years as a teen may need to face a transfer hearing, which decides if they can be charged as an adult, and other factors not seen in adult cases. Teens must be 14 or older before prosecutors can pursue an adult charge.
The Hernandez case involved a 13-year-old who admitted to firing the gun, saying it was an accident, according to attorneys at the disposition hearing, which is the juvenile version of a sentencing.
Fresno police investigated the case thoroughly, according to Lt. Larry Bowlan, a department spokesperson.
“The Fresno Police Department Homicide Unit spent hundreds of hours investigating this crime. They also interviewed dozens of people and served multiple search warrants during the follow-up to this death investigation,” he said in a statement. “If further information about the incident becomes available in the future, those details will also be provided to the appropriate prosecuting agency.”
Infante was joined at the center Friday by a number of supporters before and during the hearing, including several who have had family killed by a youthful offender. They are part of a network of people looking to overturn Proposition 57, which was adopted by voters in 2016. Many of them say the state law prevents them from getting justice because the sentences of young offenders are significantly shorter than adults.
Advocates for Prop 57 said it would amend the state constitution to allow parole consideration for nonviolent felons, and opponents argued it would endanger public safety through an early release of offenders convicted of violent crimes such as rape and assault with a deadly weapon.
“He didn’t deserve this. He was so nice”
Infante smiled as she remembered her son, saying he never had a disrespectful teenage phase, was known to always be there for his friends and couldn’t resist helping a stray animal.
“This is the type of stuff that you would hear about Edgar, and it breaks my heart because I’m, like, he was so nice,” she said. “He didn’t deserve this. He was so nice.”
Hernandez had attended Sunnyside High and was in an automotive technology program at Fresno City College. Infante held back tears as she recounted all the goals he had set for himself, like his plans to also study business so he could own his own car shop.
“‘Mom, I’m going to do that. Mom, one day I’m going to have my own business,’“ she said. “And he had a lot of plans that we were supposed to do. All that’s gone.”
Demonstrators hold posters as they gather outside the Fresno County Juvenile Justice Center on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026, to push for a stiffer sentence for a 13-year-old who was sentenced to a year in the involuntary manslaughter case in which 19-year-old Edgar Hernandez was killed. THADDEUS MILLER tmiller@fresnobee.com 
Demonstrators gather outside the Fresno County Juvenile Justice Center on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026, to push for a stiffer sentence for a 13-year-old who was sentenced to a year in the involuntary manslaughter case in which 19-year-old Edgar Hernandez was killed. THADDEUS MILLER tmiller@fresnobee.com
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Reporter Thaddeus Miller has covered cities in the central San Joaquin Valley since 2010, writing about everything from breaking news to government and police accountability. A native of Fresno, he joined The Fresno Bee in 2019 after time in Merced and Los Banos.