(09-29) 19:08 PDT -- The Casillas family did everything they could, took every precaution they could think of to keep their boy - their only boy - safe from the violence in their Oakland neighborhood.
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CHIP JOHNSON
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But it wasn't enough.
The violence that Leopoldo and Linda Casillas recognized, and feared, came without rhyme or reason or warning and snatched the very life of Marco Casillas, a 19-year old man without gang affiliations, a drug problem or a criminal record.
In Oakland's gang-infested neighborhoods, simply being identified as a male teenager or young adult can get you killed.
By all accounts, including the findings of Oakland detectives investigating his death, Casillas had done nothing to evoke such violence. He didn't run with a gang or affiliate himself with any group, and took great pride in just being himself, family members said.
That provides little comfort in the Casillas home in the Fruitvale neighborhood, where the young man's parents sat on the couch in their home Monday and sorted through memories and emotions and prepared to bury their youngest child.
According to police, Marco Casillas was walking a dog with his 19-year-old girlfriend Sept. 20 in the 4000 block of Santa Rita Street when someone opened fire on them about 10:45 p.m.
The girl's mother knew something was terribly wrong when the dog came back to the house alone with blood on its fur. Casillas and his girlfriend were found lying on the sidewalk.
He died at Highland Hospital within half an hour of the assault, becoming the city's 103rd homicide victim this year. His girlfriend, whose name was withheld, was seriously wounded but survived.
In the part of Oakland where they live, the Casillas family has watched with great concern as violence has ratcheted up over the years. They were aware of the dangers and took special precautions with their son because of it.
For years, right up until his death, Marco's parents had gone the extra mile to ensure their son's future.
His father walked with him to the Fruitvale BART station every day to see him off to Heald Technical College in Hayward and picked him up when he came home.
Leopoldo Casillas waited for his son at recreational activities - they even went to the barber shop together. He drove Marco to work at a pizza shop in Alameda and picked him up when his shift was over.
On the night he was shot, Linda Casillas said her son was planning to have dinner at his girlfriend's house and watch a movie. He assured her he was not going out.
His father speaks broken English, but it's difficult for him to speak of his son's death in any language.
"Mal," the Spanish word for bad, was about all he could get out Monday.
He's heartbroken, but remaining strong for his wife and daughters. Whenever Leopoldo Casillas began to talk about his son, his voice trailed off to silence, his head fell and he stared straight ahead - his wife and daughters, sensing his grief, quietly cried for him.
"They were friends," said Rebecca Navarro said of her father and step-brother.
Navarro contacted the offices of Mayor Ron Dellums and Ignacio De La Fuente, the Oakland City Council member who represents the Fruitvale district, to tell them how the horrific violence in the city they are supposed to lead had just claimed one of the good guys - her younger brother.
She never heard back from anyone.
Last year, her mother called 911 when she saw a man on a bike holding a gun to the head of another man right outside her home. A dispatcher asked if she was mistaken. "Are they friends?" "Are they just playing?"
Suffice it to say the family doesn't have a lot of confidence in the ability of the Oakland Police Department to maintain neighborhood safety and the shooting death of their son less than 10 blocks from home only served to confirm it.
Their son had big plans and big dreams but Oakland's most lawless neighborhoods are places where dreams and dreamers are all too often left to die.
Marco planned to graduate from the technical college in December, find a full-time job and help his mom and dad finally move out of the crime-ridden neighborhood.
He and his mother, a janitor for the UC system, planned to pool their finances and move the family out of Oakland in January. They were looking in Livermore. Leopoldo Casillas has two surgically repaired shoulders and no longer works.
Mother and son planned to buy a car that would get them both to a BART station - and into the central cities because as a new driver he wasn't comfortable traveling on Interstates 580 or 880.
The family is still looking to leave Oakland behind them, but the tragedy has jolted them from such daily tasks.
"We went looking for houses in Castro Valley on Sunday, but I can't find my balance right now," said Marco's mother.
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