EDS: DO NOT USE THIS PHOTO. THE KID IS A MINOR AND AT THIS POINT HE IS NOT BEING TRIED AS AN ADULT. WE ARE KEEPING THE PHOTO IN THE SYSTEM IN CASE HIS STATUS CHANGES. Copy photo of Orlando Anthony Ware Jr. when he was 15 years old. DO NOT USE
A teenager set free by a judge soon after Mayor Newsom ordered a reduction in the population at SF's overcrowded juvenile hall is now charged w/ murder in the shooting death of another teen eight days after his release. We get a snapshot of the suspect. (Lacy Atkins /San Francisco Chronicle)
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Photo: Lacy Atkins

EDS: DO NOT USE THIS PHOTO. THE KID IS A MINOR AND AT THIS POINT HE...

A teenager set free by a judge soon after Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered a reduction in the population at San Francisco's overcrowded juvenile hall has been charged with murder in the shooting death of another teenager eight days after his release.

Anthony Orlando Ware, 16, had a robbery conviction on his record, was a ward of the court because his mother said she could no longer control him, and had been habitually violating probation conditions when he was released on May 7 by Superior Court Commissioner Abby Abinanti.

At 5 p.m. May 15, according to police, Ware pulled out a gun on San Bruno Avenue in the city's Visitacion Valley neighborhood and shot Eric Campos, 19, in the head.

According to authorities, the slaying took place immediately after Ware and another youth had snatched drugs from Campos -- pills Campos had intended to sell them -- and while Campos chased the youths up the street on foot.

The slaying occurred just two weeks after Newsom's call on May 2 for a reduction in the number of youths held at the city's new Juvenile Justice Center, which had started to exceed its legal capacity. The events raise the question of whether the courts or probation officials were too lax or felt pressured to release juveniles who might have posed safety dangers.

"I'd like to know what they are going to say," said Juan Rodriguez of Antioch, the father of the homicide victim. "This is ridiculous -- people with all kinds of records, and they get released to the streets to do another crime."

Nathan Ballard, the mayor's spokesman, said it would be unfair to assign any blame to Newsom because Ware's release was approved by a judge.

"(It) had absolutely nothing to do with any policy decision by the mayor," Ballard said.

Siffermann said about 40 youths were released last month after the mayor's call for a reduction in population, and he maintained that each case was given careful consideration.

"I don't believe there were any mistakes made," he said. "They were the result of careful thought, and public safety is always given consideration here."

While some circumstances surrounding Ware's release are unclear because of juvenile confidentiality rules, interviews and records reviewed by The Chronicle show that the 16-year-old was spiraling out of control at the time he was freed from San Francisco's juvenile hall.

In July 2006, Ware, then 15, was involved in the robbery of a 23-year-old woman in San Francisco and was convicted of being an accessory to the crime in October.

It was Ware's first offense, and he was released on probation on the condition he seek counseling, obey a curfew and attend school.

By January, however, he was found to have been violating those probation conditions.

Nevertheless, after he was brought back to appear before Commissioner Abinanti, Ware was ordered freed on probation again and returned to the custody of his mother and stepfather.

On March 29, Ware picked up a second probation violation. A case report his probation officer submitted to Abinanti described the details of a "riotous" incident on March 22 in which Ware allegedly threatened to assault a school counselor after being removed from a counseling session for disruptive behavior.

According to the report, Ware wasn't attending school, obeying his parents or heeding his curfew, and he had tested positive for drug use.

When he did attend school, according to the report, his behavior was described as "outlandish," and school officials reported feeling threatened by him.

When Ware finally appeared before Abinanti for his new set of probation violations at a hearing April 20, the commissioner had an array of options at her disposal -- including incarcerating the youth in community-based juvenile detention programs or at the city's Log Cabin Ranch rehabilitative program in La Honda in San Mateo County.

But Ware's probation officer, Kent Gaughenbaugh, who originally was pushing for a detention program, had a change of heart after meeting with Ware's father, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the case. The father declined to comment.

Gaughenbaugh declined to be interviewed. But the law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of confidentiality rules governing juvenile court proceedings, said Gaughenbaugh recommended releasing Ware into the custody of his father, who lived in Vallejo, on the condition he attend school there and not return to San Francisco. Abinanti agreed, the source said.

But on April 25, the father reported that Ware had never arrived, records show. Two days later, the boy finally turned up in Vallejo, then disappeared again.

On May 1, after gang rivals shot at him in San Francisco, the youth turned himself in at juvenile hall, according to the records.

The next day, Newsom, responding to a clamor from youth advocates about overcrowding at the Juvenile Justice Center, issued his order for an immediate reduction in the number of youths held at the site.

Newsom also called for probation officials to revitalize a plan, pushed for by those same advocates six years earlier, calling for greater use of alternatives to juvenile hall.

Within 48 hours, Juvenile Probation Chief Siffermann had cut the number in the center by two dozen. Siffermann said in an interview that he was mindful of public safety during each release. More releases would soon follow. One of those would be Ware.

On May 7, over the objection of prosecutors, Abinanti freed Ware again to his father in Vallejo on the condition he remain at home except to attend school or other probation-related appointments.

Probation officer Gaughenbaugh did not attend the May 7 hearing and had made no written recommendation as to what the court should do. Another Juvenile Probation Department representative at the hearing did not take a position as to whether Ware should be detained.

Eight days later, police say, Ware and another youth met Eric Campos, a suspected drug dealer, on San Bruno Avenue just before 5 p.m.

In the midst of a drug transaction, police say, Ware and the other youth dashed off on foot, and Campos pursued them.

Ware allegedly wheeled around and shot Campos in the head.

Police arrested Ware after finding his cell phone at the scene of the crime. He told investigators he had lost his phone while riding a bus.

Now prosecutors are petitioning the Superior Court for approval to try Ware as an adult, which would mean he could spend 25 years to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.

Under state law, District Attorney Kamala Harris already has the power to move the case directly into the adult criminal justice system -- but when she ran for election in 2003, she opposed the law giving county prosecutors that authority.

Harris' office declined comment on the case other than to say that it was the judge's decision to release Ware and that it came over the prosecutor's strong objections.

Campos' father said he is as outraged by Harris' unwillingness to take the case directly into the adult criminal system as he is by the release of Ware in the first place.

"They are supposed to keep the guy in jail for the record he has got," he said. "People like that you cannot keep on the street."

Youth advocates in San Francisco who have been pushing for alternatives to incarceration say the Ware shooting is a tragedy, but they argue that locking up more kids won't solve juvenile crime.

"In a well-designed, good system, that case would not have happened," said N'Tanya Lee, director of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, which called the recent overcrowding at juvenile hall an emergency.

But police say the killing was the predictable consequence of a system weighted heavily in favor of returning young offenders to their neighborhoods rather than placing them in youth detention programs.

"This is one of many cases waiting to happen," said Capt. Marsha Ashe of the Police Department's juvenile division. "This isn't the first case where a kid released on probation has committed a violent felony, and it won't be the last."

Rich Perino, a former union chief for probation officers, says probation officers are caught in the middle of a long-running philosophical battle.

"We've got a dilemma here: One point of view supports releasing them minutes after they are booked to a rehabilitation program and if we don't do that, we're not doing our job," he said. "The other is that public safety is paramount, and we'll take care of rehabilitation later."

Allen Nance, a former aide to Newsom who is second in command at the Juvenile Probation Department, said only careful compromise will make the system work.

"We have to stop pointing fingers and actually start accepting our shared responsibilities so healthy families result," Nance said. "As long as we continue to argue about the problem, blame each other, blame the institutions, blame the community -- the aftermath is that kid after kid is going to be victimized and become offenders. That's not acceptable."

Naming juvenile defendants

It is The Chronicle's policy in general not to name criminal suspects younger than 18. If suspects are tried as adults, their names are used. The Chronicle also is cautious about naming juvenile victims of a crime. The newspaper chose to name Anthony Orlando Ware in this story because District Attorney Kamala Harris is petitioning the court for approval to try him as an adult -- and because state law allows juveniles who are charged with murder to be prosecuted and sentenced as adults.