Just from his picture, you can feel Damien González’s warmth.
The photos, shared in the days after the 18-year-old’s Aug. 18 killing, capture the lively warmth for which he was known. In one snapshot, taken at a Latino Task Force event, González playfully claps his hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh. Even in a more stoic portrait, like the one carried by his grieving aunt on Monday during a memorial, González’s smile is soft, affecting.
Scores of friends and relatives were shocked when González was shot and killed at the Mission Recreation Center by an unknown assailant. His family said González was an ambitious and caring young man on the cusp of a new chapter: He had just applied for a job, was expecting his first child, and was building up his fledgling clothing brand. Instead, while playing basketball with high school friends at Mission Rec, everything ended in the blink of an eye.
At the Monday memorial, even his mother, Ariana Sanchez, who sobbed through most of the event, couldn’t help but crack a smile and a few laughs while recounting happy memories and describing her son’s infectious personality.
“He loved to be home with me,” Sanchez said.
He was “la alegría de la casa,” added his grandmother Teresa Santos, with whom González lived. The joy of the house.
‘Chelo,’ the ‘light of the office’
He was born Damien González on Jan. 18, 2005, but his father, Rigo González, and mother, Ariana Sanchez, rarely called him that. To relatives, he was “Chelo,” a nod to a soccer player on the elder González’s favorite team, Cruz Azul of Mexico City.
Though his parents later separated and had other children — González had five siblings — “Chelo” was a reliable presence at family events, showing up with carefully groomed eyebrows, a fresh haircut and sneakers. “Good morning, good morning, good morning,” he’d greet the household.
“He was always happy, happy, happy,” his grandmother, Santos, said in Spanish. “He never had an angry expression.” The young man, who regularly accompanied her to church, would attempt to transmit that joy whenever Santos appeared down. “Don’t be sad,” he’d tell her. “Laugh.”
Santos and her grandson lived together in Daly City, though González spent half the time with his partner, who is pregnant. Gonzalez would have become a father in October.
And his mom has no doubt he would have been an excellent one. When Sanchez’s brother had a double-lung transplant, González pitched in with caretaking. During Sanchez’s drives to the city, he’d call to ensure she was OK. If Sanchez bickered with her husband, González let her know he was in her corner. “I got you, Mom,” he’d tell her.
He had his friends’ backs, too, according to his internship supervisor, Agustín Angel Bernabe, who works at the Latino Task Force, a coalition of Mission groups. As a summer intern at the organization, González helped with outreach to community members about available resources, and told peers about opportunities from which they could benefit.
“He looked out more for others, versus himself,” said Angel Bernabe, “which really shows the kind of heart he has.”
Angel Bernabe watched González start the summer as a shy teen, and end it as the “light of the office” who cracked jokes and performed even the most menial tasks jovially. Many in the Mission, including Supervisor Hillary Ronen and Tracy Gallardo-Brown, an aide to Supervisor Shamann Walton, had seen González as a rising leader; he stood out for how compassionately he interacted with community members and seldom complained.
González was also a budding entrepreneur who had launched a clothing line called BBDR, or “Born Broke, Die Rich.”
“He was a business kid,” Sanchez said. “He wanted to be his own boss.”
He had the chops. As recently as this month, he sold BBDR merchandise at an event organized by Calle 24 Latino Cultural District and Clecha, a Latino business organization, in the Mission. He made a compelling presentation and won BBDR a grant from the organization Roadmap to Peace, where he was once a member.
“BBDR is an inspirational brand,” said Angel Bernabe, who watched González’s pitch. “Whether you’re rich or broke … there is an opportunity for everyone to make your dreams come true.”
If the candles and handwritten messages at his makeshift altar at Mission Rec indicate anything, it’s that his message resonated among peers and friends, some of whom fondly called González “Lil Smokey.” All around the Mission Rec Center where he died, handwritten messages said, “Die Rich” or “BBDR.” At Monday’s press conference, a young man wearing a BBDR sweatshirt said, “I want to say, I’m 10 years his senior, and I look up to him. I admire him very much.”
‘It’s going to be beautiful’
González was also just a young man who goofed off with friends, binged TV shows with his mom, and indulged in junk food: Hot Cheetos, Panda Express and Wendy’s. When Angel Bernabe asked what the Latino Task Force interns wanted for lunch, González commonly responded: “You know what I’m about to say.” In other words: McDonald’s or Supreme Pizza. “I’m like, no,” Angel Bernabe laughed. “Let’s try something else.”
He loved dancing, PlayStation and basketball, his grandmother added; his final activity was shooting hoops with some friends from John O’Connell High School, which he attended for four years. The night of his death on Aug. 18, friends gathered at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital to mourn, and a private healing circle at John O’Connell is scheduled for Aug. 23.
Angel Bernabe proudly attended González’s graduation from Civic Center Secondary School this summer, where he completed credits he had missed during the pandemic. He finished the task “in, like, a week,” his mother beamed. She expected no less from her intelligent son who, as a child, was a stellar student at John Muir Elementary School and Parkside Intermediate School, she said.
Studying fatherhood energized González, too. The baby, expected in October, would have been his first. The baby shower was scheduled for Aug. 26; everything was prepped, and González’s outfit had just arrived. “He was so excited,” Sanchez said.
He once asked his mom: Does cutting the umbilical cord hurt the woman? Does skin-to-skin contact, holding your newborn’s skin to his, truly deepen emotional bonds between parent and child? González vowed to try it when his mother told him “yes.”
“He was trying to make a life change, and make sure he was providing for his baby, no matter what,” Angel Bernabe said. That included finding steady employment. González had just applied for his first job with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Sanchez said, the day he died.
The family has set up a GoFundMe page to support González’s unborn child and partner. Plans for his funeral are still in the works, “but it’s going to be beautiful,” Sanchez said. “We’re going to do something beautiful.”
