Quiet Town Shaken By Teen Killing

LYNDEN, Whatcom County - It would be an unthinkable crime anywhere, but in this tiny conservative community that hugs the Canadian border it is much more.

A 17-year-old is gunned down outside the entrance to the city park. A 13-year-old is the suspected shooter. A town is trying to understand why.

"It's really tough," said Ken Stap, a bookstore owner who grew up in Lynden, an agriculture and retirement town of about 8,000 residents. "It's really out of place in the community and sets the community on edge."

A kaleidoscope of flowers and balloons adorns the sidewalk outside the police station where Denton Hendricks took his last breath. His brother and best friend rushed him there Wednesday night in a desperate race to save his life.

"I had to hold his hand while my friend was dying," said Sam Moncrieff, who spent yesterday with Hendricks' relatives and friends and struggled to talk about the events of the night before.

"It's a real tragedy," said Lynden Police Chief Jack Foster. "Two really young lives wasted."

The 13-year-old boy has been booked into the Whatcom County juvenile detention center and was expected to be charged today with first-degree murder.

It's still not known what led to the shooting, but Foster said it may have been provoked by an argument between Hendricks' brother, Donald, 19, and the 13-year-old suspect.

Donald Hendricks said he was walking near the park when the 13-year-old and two friends got off a bus and began taunting him and flashing gang signs. He said he went home and met his brother and Moncrieff. The three decided to go back and confront the youths. They were unarmed, Hendricks says.

When they arrived at the park the 13-year-old ran away, recalls Hendricks, and as the three turned to leave, the youth returned with a rifle.

"We thought it was a pellet gun," Hendricks said, "and we were going to rough him up for pulling a gun on us."

But when the boy began firing - five shots in all, said Hendricks - they tried to flee.

The 13-year-old dropped to his knee, raised his rifle, aimed and shot Denton Hendricks in the abdomen, Donald Hendricks said.

Hearing the words, "I got shot, I got shot," Hendricks gently lifted his brother into his truck, told him he loved him and rushed him to the police station, where he died. Friends held a vigil there until late into the evening.

Hendricks said he took his brother to the police station because that's where their friend, Officer Lee Beld, worked.

Beld says he had an unusual relationship with Denton Hendricks.

"He was definitely someone on the other side of the fence, but I appreciated him," Beld said yesterday. "He was a friend in an awkward sort of way. He was always straightforward with me, and I enjoyed his company."

Foster said the youths may have had some gang association, but could not say the incident was gang-related.

"It appears to be a senseless situation that escalated from a comment and continued to grow, resulting in tragedy," he said, adding that he sees it as an isolated incident and not an indictment of either the town's youth or its growth.

"There's change with any town that's doubled in size over 15 years," Foster said. "There was a time when everyone in Lynden knew everyone else. They were either related or grew up together. It is still a place of strong community values."

The town is famous for its Dutch heritage, tidy streets and deep religious beliefs.

It made headlines two years ago when a cross was burned at a migrant-labor camp and a book that talked of incest was banned from the high-school reading list. The last murder here was in 1989.

Bars are closed on Sundays, and dancing is restricted in places that sell liquor.

Foster said the 13-year-old, a student at Lynden Middle School, was a newcomer who moved here about three weeks ago from nearby Ferndale.

But Whatcom County Deputy Prosecutor Liz Gallery knows the boy very well. He has a long history of brushes with the law.

"I handled all of his prior cases," Gallery said. "He has a fairly extensive juvenile record and six convictions."

They include charges of assault, burglary, and drug and weapons possession. In one instance he allegedly held a knife to another youth's face. Gallery is considering trying him as an adult in the shooting.

Police are still looking into the possibility of previous trouble between the two teenagers, but as of yesterday none had been confirmed. Hendricks said neither he nor his brother knew the 13-year-old.

Whatcom County Juvenile Court Commissioner Charles Snyder had ordered the boy held on $250,000 bail.

While Foster said Denton Hendricks may have been acquainted with gang members, prosecutors said he was not a member of either of two youth gangs formed recently in Lynden.

Talk of gang involvement angers Hendricks' friends, who insist he was not involved with gangs and tried to keep others out of them.

Although he dropped out of high school, he earned his GED and was working for a Bellingham landscaper. He and his girlfriend, Kimberly Elenbaas, were planning to wed after she finished high school.

"He was a young man with a very bright future," said Rebecca Fowler, the mother of a friend of Hendricks.

Donald and Denton Hendricks, two of 11 children, moved to Lynden three years ago from California to live with their mother and younger brother, K.C.

The two older boys moved into an apartment together when their mother was transferred to Arkansas as a long-haul truck driver.

"We always stuck with each other, we always stayed together," said Donald Hendricks, his voice breaking.

A dozen of Hendricks' friends gathered in a home yesterday to support each other in their grief. "It's a roller coaster of emotions," said Fowler.

Police may never know what provoked the shooting or what caused words to erupt in gunfire.

"Kids can't go anywhere without harmful remarks," said Fowler. "These kids are just kids. People want to think it's not their kids, but they are."

Information from Seattle Times staff reporter Dee Norton is included in this report.