Young Suspect In Baby Beating Loses Last Childhood Trappings

RICHMOND, Calif. - It's a plain, modest bedroom like many young boys might have.

There's a Power Rangers poster on one wall and a "Star Student" school certificate on another. A plastic Batmobile rests, poised for action, on the night-stand. And by the door, a penny collection has only started to fill a giant plastic bottle.

Many of the trappings of childhood are here, but the 6-year-old boy who lived in this room was charged last week with attempting to kill a baby.

It is an event that might never make sense. But one might begin to understand when one looks at the boy's troubled family life and into the rough streets of this economically depressed city on San Francisco Bay.

In Richmond, in a neighborhood called the Iron Triangle, boys no taller than fire hydrants gaze on the world with hard stares. A strung-out woman wanders the street in pink house slippers, ranting at some unseen enemy. Sirens scream.

And a 6-year-old, now charged with attempted murder, often found his way alone. According to friends, relatives and official records, his father is dead, his mother is out for long hours - caring for other people's children - and his grandmother, a convicted drug dealer, often is left to mind the boy.

If a prosecutor's allegations are true, it is a life that turned a rambunctious boy with a winning smile into a malicious menace. That turned him into a ringleader, who brought twin 8-year-old boys along to break into the infant's home. There, he allegedly beat month-old Ignacio Bermudez Jr. nearly to death. And largely, prosecutors allege, because he wanted a plastic tricycle that retails for as little as $19.99.

But there are some in this neighborhood, also friends and relatives of the boy, who say the scenario is inconceivable. They express sorrow for the infant who now lies in critical condition in an Oakland hospital. But they also recall that his alleged attacker cradled other infants in his arms, talking softly to them and supporting their heads.

"I can't believe it, and I don't believe it," said Cordelia Jones, an adult cousin of the suspect. "I have seen this boy, and I know better."

The boy remains in Contra Costa County Juvenile Hall, where his mother visited him Friday night. He could remain there for months, while the courts decide how to deal with such a young suspect.

Neighbors remember that if they asked the boy about his father, he answered: "My Daddy's dead." But no one seems to recall who the man was or how he died.

His mother, 27-year-old Lisa Toliver, has worked on and off in child care, according to the Department of Social Services. She also is licensed to provide foster care at her home.

Friends described Toliver as struggling to pull herself out of a difficult childhood and adolescence. They said she was sickened by the drug use she saw in her family and was determined to stay clean.

But a Richmond police report describes an August 1995 incident this way: She was partying and drinking late into the night at a friend's house when a dispute broke out and Toliver began to brawl with three other women. When police arrived and tried to intercede, Toliver allegedly lunged at them. It reportedly took three officers and a dose of pepper spray to subdue her.

Toliver's case was referred to the Contra Costa County district attorney's office, but charges never were filed.

Toliver has declined to talk to the media.

When Toliver's son wasn't with her, or across the street at Lincoln Elementary School, he often was with his grandmother Phyllis Rideau, 56, who also has had encounters with the law.

In May 1994, she pleaded no contest in Alameda County Superior Court to possession of cocaine for sale. Rideau remains on three years' probation. She declined to discuss the matter.

The boy was held back in school this year to repeat kindergarten. And a hearing impairment was discovered recently, forcing him to wear a hearing aid.

Some people in Richmond scoff at the idea that the boy was a sociopath, or extraordinary in any way.

"He's just like most other 6-year-old boys," said Rideau, the grandmother.

She concluded: "We are not violent people. In fact, that boy has gotten very few whippings."

Prosecutor Harold Jewett told a judge Friday that the 6-year-old "went to the (Bermudez) home and previously expressed the belief that the family there had been harassing him - looked at him the wrong way - and he had to kill the baby."

But Leslie Bialik, the public defender representing the 6-year-old, urged therapy and compassion for the youngster, saying he is "just a little tiny Munchkin."