One of the two men arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of a Tucson police recruit shot and killed his friend when he was 12 years old, according to Tucson Citizen archives.
On June 1, 2001, a then-12-year-old Santiago Jorge Rogers and Albert Lopez Jr., 12, reportedly found a .25-caliber handgun in James Thomas Park, a small neighborhood park near South Country Club Road and East 36th Street.
Later, in the side yard of Lopez's home in the 400 block of West Columbia Street, near South 12th Avenue and West Ajo Way, Rogers fired the weapon, striking Lopez in the chest, the Citizen reported.
Lopez died shortly after being taken to a local hospital.
At the time, Rogers had been living with the Lopez family for nearly two years. The Lopez family forgave Rogers after the incident, Lopez's dad told a Citizen reporter in 2001.
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"It was like losing two kids in one night," he said at the time. "I wish I could take him home, but I can't."
In July of the same year, Rogers was sentenced in Pima County Juvenile Court on charges of negligent homicide and possession of a firearm to 18 months of intensive probation.
Then, on Dec. 27, 2005, Rogers was arrested on suspicion of drug and drug paraphernalia possession, an interim complaint says.
After first trying to hide it, the complaint continues, he told police it was crack cocaine.
This undated photo from the Arizona Department of Corrections shows Santiago Rogers, one of two men facing charges in the killing last week of a Tucson police recruit during an apparent home invasion.
While on probation for drug possession, he was arrested again on Dec. 2, 2006, on suspicion of prohibited possession of a firearm.
In May of the following year, he was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison.
In the years since, Rogers went in and out of prison on charges out of other Arizona counties, including drug violations, promoting prison contraband and shoplifting, Arizona Department of Corrections records show.
On Aug. 22, three days after Carlos Ramirez was shot dead in his home southwest of Tucson, Rogers was the first of three men investigators linked to the fatal shooting to be arrested, the Pima County Sheriff's Department has said.
Ramirez, a former corrections officer, was days away from completing the academy to join the Tucson Police Department.
His pregnant fiancée, a 23-year-old corrections officer who was shot in the shoulder during the incident, and the couple's child were inside the home at the time.
On Monday, Alex Barnett, who also has an extensive criminal record, surrendered after a three-hour standoff following a five-day manhunt.
A third man whom authorities suspected to be involved was also located over the weekend but not placed under arrest, the department has said.
No information on a motive in the killing has been released, but a complaint filed in Pima County Justice Court said the shooting appears random.
Both Rogers and Barnett are being held without bond in Pima County jail on multiple charges.
