Boy Pleads Guilty in Shooting Death : Courts: Judge sets date to consider sentencing of 10-year-old who fired a bullet into a trailer, killing a mother of three.

A 10-year-old boy charged in the shooting death of a mother of three has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, and a judge must now decide how severely to punish the youth.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Raymond Avila said Wednesday that the boy entered the guilty plea at a Juvenile Court hearing Tuesday. The plea also carries an admission of negligence, Avila said.

The youth, whose name has been with held because of his age, originally had been charged with murder in the Barrio Logan shooting on March 8. Police said he fired a bullet into a trailer, killing Manuela Garcia de la Rosa, 25, as she was tucking in her son for the night.

Investigators said the boy and two male companions, ages 13 and 14, were shooting a .22-caliber Uzi-type weapon from a roof across from Garcia’s trailer. Police said the older boys had been firing the weapon into the air.

The weapon still hasn’t been found, San Diego homicide Lt. John Welter said Wednesday.

Juvenile Court Judge Melinda Lasater scheduled a sentencing hearing for April 21, during which she will consider several options for punishing the young defendant.

Avila said the judge could send the boy to the California Youth Authority, a foster home or youth camp, or to a 24-hour residential care facility.

Where the youth ends up depends largely on a pre-sentencing report being prepared by the County Probation Department. However, Tony Cimarusti, CYA assistant director, disagreed with Avila and said the child cannot be sentenced to the custody of the youth authority.

“There was a law that went into effect on Feb. 28 that prohibits the commitment of youths under the age of 11 to the CYA,” said Cimarusti.

Although Avila declined to elaborate on sentencing possibilities, sources familiar with the case said the youth’s mother told officials she wants him placed in a 24-hour residential facility, possibly in Arizona.

“The mother told the lawyers that she wants him put in a structured environment where he will get a lot of direction and discipline,” according to a source. “She wants him to go to school and put his mind to learning.”

Last month, in an interview with The Times, the mother said she was unable to control her son. She said she would ask authorities to lock him up in the hope that discipline and a controlled environment would help turn his life around.

Although the boy is only 10, officials who dismissed him from two elementary schools considered him incorrigible. At the time of the shooting, his formal education consisted of two 30-minute tutoring sessions each week at the library.

Getting the boy to attend the tutoring sessions was also an impossible task, the mother said. He preferred the life of the streets, she added. Police occasionally picked him up off the mean streets of Barrio Logan at 2 a.m. and drove him home.

Family and neighbors said the boy had known only poverty and violence in his short life. Two years ago, the youth watched as his older brother was killed in a drive-by shooting in another tough barrio.