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SALT LAKE CITY -- A West Valley City teen appeared in court Tuesday morning and heard the charges against him. During the brief hearing, his bail was set at a million dollars.
Jonatan Bustos, 16, appeared Tuesday by closed-circuit video from the Salt Lake County Jail for arraignment and designation as an adult by Third District Court Judge Deno Himonas.
Bustos' mother, Guadalupe Hernandez, watched in the courtroom as the judge set a Thursday hearing for her son to appear with a public defense lawyer.
Bustos has been charged as an adult. Prosecutors say he stabbed classmate Tayler Pankow, 15, in a fight over a stolen iPod on Aug. 30. But Hernandez says her son was defending himself.
Last week, Hernandez told KSL her son is a good kid and she believes he is sorry for what happened.
"He's one of those kids that came straight home from school. He went to church. He was involved in after-school programs and sports," she said.
Prosecutors say Bustos and Pankow were arguing in a Family Dollar Store parking lot over a stolen iPod. They say the fight got physical, and then Bustos pulled out a knife and stabbed Pankow twice -- once in his heart.
Charging documents say three days prior to that, Bustos had a confrontation with Pankow and decided to carry a knife for protection.
Hernandez says her son was frightened. She says a week before the stabbing, a group of teens, including Pankow, began harassing him, accusing him of stealing an iPod.
She says that's what was happening in the parking lot at the time of the stabbing. She says moments before it happened, her son called police but the bullying didn't stop.
"At that point, he took out the knife," Hernandez said. "He said that he just wanted to scare them, that he wanted to be able to get away and he was fighting for his own self-defense."
Hernandez says a woman who watches her children spoke to Bustos immediately after the stabbing. She says he told the woman he was only defending himself and that Pankow attacked him first.
Hernandez says she feels for Pankow's family. She says this is something that should never have happened.
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Story compiled with contributions from Shara Park and the Associated Press.
