HOUSTON (AP) — Police have charged a Houston man with murder in the fatal shooting of an 11-year-old boy who knocked on the door of a home and ran away as a prank, police said Tuesday.
The 42-year-old man, identified by authorities as Gonzalo Leon Jr., was taken into custody and booked into the Harris County Jail in Houston early Tuesday. On local property records, Leon matches the name of the owner of the home where police say the boy knocked on the door.
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This image provided by the Houston Police Department shows Gonzalo Leon Jr. (Houston Police Department via AP)
A makeshift memorial for 11-year-old Julian Guzman, who was shot and killed during a doorbell prank, is shown Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
A makeshift memorial for 11-year-old Julian Guzman, who was shot and killed during a doorbell prank, is shown Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
A home is shown Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Houston, near the location where 11-year-old Julian Guzman was shot and killed during a doorbell prank, according to police. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Neighbor George Skinner, right, talks a police investigator outside a home Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Houston, near the location where 11-year-old Julian Guzman was shot and killed during a doorbell prank, according to police. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
A makeshift memorial for 11-year-old Julian Guzman, who was shot and killed during a doorbell prank, is shown Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Court records did not list an attorney for Leon to comment on the allegations.
The boy, Julian Guzman, and a cousin had been attending a birthday party Saturday night when they “became bored and wanted to ring doorbells, or play ‘ding dong ditch,’” according to a probable cause affidavit. The prank commonly called “ding dong ditching” involves ringing a doorbell or knocking on a door and fleeing before someone inside opens the door.
Police departments around the country have issued public service announcements in recent months warning people that such actions aren’t funny but dangerous. Homeowners have no way of knowing it’s “just a prank,” according to a June Facebook post by the Georgetown, Kentucky Police Department.
Guzman’s cousin told investigators he and Guzman knocked several times on Leon’s door and ran away. In an initial statement, police had said Guzman rang a doorbell, but the affidavit said the boy knocked.
The final time he and the cousin knocked, Leon came out holding a pistol that he fired once into the ground. Leon then raised the pistol and fired at Guzman and his cousin, according to the affidavit.
“Our witness says the suspect came out of the door, ran out into the street and was firing down the road,” Houston police Sgt. Michael Cass told reporters on Sunday.
Guzman’s cousin told police that Guzman “cried out in pain that he had been shot,” according to the affidavit. As Guzman's cousin was trying to drag the boy away, Leon slowly walked back to his house.
Guzman was shot in the back and died Sunday, police said.
“In my opinion, it doesn’t look like any type of self-defense. It wasn’t close to the house,” Cass said.
Police found about 20 firearms in Leon's home, including AR-style rifles, shotguns and medium caliber pistols.
Texas and other states have some version of a “castle doctrine,” either by law or court precedent, that says residents don’t have to retreat when threatened in their homes but instead can respond with physical force. While Texas law gives people broad latitude to protect themselves, protect others or protect their property, there has to be a reasonable belief that force is immediately necessary in the situation.
Seth Kretzer, an attorney in Houston not connected to the case, said if the shooting happened as police allege then Leon would not have a strong case for self-defense under state law.
“You just can’t shoot a kid in the street dead because he knocks on your doorbell and declare you felt threatened by him. I mean it's a little hard to believe a grown male with a gun felt threatened by an unarmed 11-year-old child running away on the street," Kretzer said.
About a half block away from the suspect's home and where Guzman collapsed after being shot, a makeshift memorial had been set up with a cross, prayer candles, flowers and a photo of the boy.
Various messages were written on the cross, including, “I miss you Julian. I still wish you were here but I will always love you 4ever” and “I love you Julian. You will always be in my heart. Rest In Peace Baby Mom.”
Other “ding dong ditch” pranks have turned deadly in the past. In 2023, a Southern California man was convicted of first-degree murder for killing three teenage boys by intentionally ramming their car after they rang his doorbell as a prank.
In May, a Virginia man was charged with second-degree murder for shooting an 18-year-old who rang his doorbell while a filming a TikTok video, the New York Times reported.
Associated Press photographer David J. Phillip contributed to this report.
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This image provided by the Houston Police Department shows Gonzalo Leon Jr. (Houston Police Department via AP)
A makeshift memorial for 11-year-old Julian Guzman, who was shot and killed during a doorbell prank, is shown Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
A makeshift memorial for 11-year-old Julian Guzman, who was shot and killed during a doorbell prank, is shown Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
A home is shown Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Houston, near the location where 11-year-old Julian Guzman was shot and killed during a doorbell prank, according to police. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Neighbor George Skinner, right, talks a police investigator outside a home Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Houston, near the location where 11-year-old Julian Guzman was shot and killed during a doorbell prank, according to police. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
A makeshift memorial for 11-year-old Julian Guzman, who was shot and killed during a doorbell prank, is shown Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The European Union’s top official on Tuesday called into question U.S. President Donald Trump’s trustworthiness, saying that he had agreed last year not to impose more tariffs on members of the bloc.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Trump’s planned new tariffs over Greenland "a mistake especially between long-standing allies.”
She was responding to Trump's announcement that starting February, a 10% import tax will be imposed goods from eight European nations that have rallied around Denmark in the wake of his stepped up calls for the United States to take over the semi-autonomous Danish territory of Greenland.
“The European Union and the United States have agreed to a trade deal last July," Von der Leyen said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “And in politics as in business – a deal is a deal. And when friends shake hands, it must mean something.”
"We consider the people of the United States not just our allies, but our friends. And plunging us into a downward spiral would only aid the very adversaries we are both so committed to keeping out of the strategic landscape,” she added.
She vowed that the EU’s response “will be unflinching, united and proportional.”
Trump has insisted the U.S. needs the territory for security reasons against possible threats from China and Russia.
Earlier Tuesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said America’s relations with Europe remain strong and urged trading partners to “take a deep breath” and let tensions driven the new tariff threats over Greenland “play out.”
“I think our relations have never been closer,” he said.
The American leader’s threats have sparked outrage and a flurry of diplomatic activity across Europe, as leaders consider possible countermeasures, including retaliatory tariffs and the first-ever use of the European Union’s anti-coercion instrument.
The EU has three major economic tools it could use to pressure Washington: new tariffs, suspension of the U.S.-EU trade deal, and the “trade bazooka” — the unofficial term for the bloc’s Anti-Coercion Instrument, which could sanction individuals or institutions found to be putting undue pressure on the EU.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump posted on social media that he had spoken with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. He said "I agreed to a meeting of the various parties in Davos, Switzerland,” which is hosting the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting this week.
Trump also posted a text message from Emmanuel Macron in which the French president suggested a meeting of members of the Group of Seven industrialized democracies in Paris after the Davos gathering.
Later, however, Trump posted some provocatively doctored images. One showed him planting the U.S. flag next to a sign reading “Greenland, U.S. Territory, Est. 2026.” The other showed Trump in the Oval Office next to a map that showed Greenland and Canada covered with the U.S. Stars and Stripes.
In a sign of how tensions have increased in recent days, thousands of Greenlanders marched over the weekend in protest of any effort to take over their island. Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post Monday that the tariff threats would not change their stance.
“We will not be pressured,” he wrote.
In his latest threat of tariffs, Trump indicated that the import taxes would be retaliation for last week’s deployment of symbolic numbers of troops from the European countries to Greenland — though he also suggested that he was using the tariffs as leverage to negotiate with Denmark.
Denmark's minister for European affairs called Trump's tariff threats “deeply unfair." He said that Europe needs to become even stronger and more independent, while stressing there is "no interest in escalating a trade war."
"You just have to note that we are on the edge of a new world order, where having power has unfortunately become crucial, and we see a United States with an enormous condescending rhetoric towards Europe,” Marie Bjerre told Danish public broadcaster DK on Tuesday.
Speaking on the sidelines of Davos, California Gov. Gavin Newsom slammed Europe’s response to Trump's tariff threats as “pathetic” and “embarrassing,” and urged European leaders to unite and stand up to the United States.
“It is time to get serious, and stop being complicit,” Newsom told reporters. “It’s time to stand tall and firm, have a backbone.”
European markets opened sharply lower on Tuesday and U.S. futures fell further as tensions rose over Greenland. Benchmarks in Germany, France and Britain fell about 1%. The future for the S&P 500 lost 1.5% and the Dow future was down 1.4%.
With U.S. trading closed Monday for a holiday, financial markets had a relatively muted response to Trump’s threat to put a 10% extra tariff on exports from eight European countries that have opposed his push to exert control over Greenland. Jonas Golterman of Capital Economics described the situation as a lose-lose one for both the U.S. and the targets of Trump’s anger. He said, “It certainly fells like the kind of situation that could get worse before it gets better.”
In another sign of tension between allies, the British government on Tuesday defended its decision to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after Trump attacked the plan, which his administration previously supported.
Trump said that relinquishing the remote Indian Ocean archipelago, home to a strategically important American naval and bomber base, was an act of stupidity that shows why he needs to take over Greenland.
The United Kingdom signed a deal in May to give Mauritius sovereignty over the islands, though the U.K. will lease back the island of Diego Garcia, where the U.S. base is located, for at least 99 years.
AP writers Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Jill Lawless in London and Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok contributed to this report.
Riot police clash with protesters after a rally against the World Economic Forum in Davos and the visit of US President Donald Trump, on Monday, in Zurich, Switzerland, Jan. 19, 2026. (Michael Buholzer/Keystone via AP)
A fisherman navigates past ice in the sea off the coast of Nuuk, Greenland, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, center, greets Minister for Foreign Affairs and Research of Greenland Vivian Motzfeldt, right, and Denmark's Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen, left, prior to a meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
People protest against Trump's policy towards Greenland in front of the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Scott Bessent, US Secretary of the Treasury, holds a speech at the USA House during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
