Family demands justice 1 year after boy killed at National City vacant house party
Elijah Smith loved the outdoors, especially riding motorcycles.
“I would tell them, yeah, it’s too dangerous,” his mother Sofia Smith said.
While Smith worried about Elijah’s safety on the bikes, deadly danger found the 12-year-old boy on Nov. 15, 2024, when gunfire erupted at a vacant house party in National City.
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According to his parents, he snuck out to the party, so he could hang with his older brother.
“There’s not one minute of the day I don’t think about Elijah,” his mother said. “He’s constantly on my mind.”
A little more than a year after the crime, no one has been charged with the shooting that took her son’s life and injured four others.
“I’m concerned that they’re forgetting about Elijah. That kind of being put on the back burner. I don’t want to forget about Elijah. He deserves justice,” Smith said.
In March of this year, 18-year-old Carlos Maldonado was arrested in connection with Elijah’s death. He was later sentenced to nine months in county jail for unrelated assault and gun charges.
In November, the family paid tribute to Elijah during a memorial.
The memory of that fateful day forced the Lemon Grove family to seek the help of violence support groups and move from their home.
“Everywhere we looked, it just broke our hearts — seeing Elijah’s stuff and where he would stand,” his mom said.
Still hoping for justice, his family is praying that one of the dozens of teenagers at the party will find the courage to come forward and, at least anonymously, give National City police a tip or that the gunman grows a conscience.
“It has to kill their conscience, it has to. Any human, unless they’re not human,” Elijah’s mother said.
