ALAMEDA FAMILY MOURNS SON FATALLY STABBED OVER ALLEGED $4 POT DEBT

Thomas Jones Hoaglin was a 16- year-old Alameda boy who dreamed of becoming
a police officer or a Marine. But the path to his future had been bumpy,
with struggles in school and some minor scrapes with the law.

The youngest of eight children, Thomas, who was also known as T.J., was
barraged every day with a litany of admonitions from his father: go to
school, don't get in trouble, stay off the street, be home by a certain
time.

Now, Ernest Hoaglin, 64, will not have the chance to sound another warning
to his son.

Thomas was stabbed to death by a 16-year-old acquaintance during an argument
over a marijuana sale worth $4 in North Oakland on August 26, police say.
The suspect was charged with murder yesterday, a day after he made a
surprise confession to police.

Ernest Hoaglin, his wife, Dorothy, 49, and their children have been trying
to cope with the loss of a happy-go-lucky teenager and Island High School
student who liked basketball and rap music. Thomas died 13 days after he
turned 16.

Hoaglin said he also had been struggling with the revelation that Thomas
apparently had been selling marijuana. The suspect owed Thomas $4 for a
small amount of marijuana.

``I always looked into his eyes and checked on him for drugs or if he was
drinking,'' Hoaglin said. ``I never found any evidence of drugs or
alcohol.''

Shelly Hoaglin, 24, expressed anger that her brother, who had a ``big heart
and wouldn't even hurt a fly,'' died so senselessly.

``I think my brother's life being taken for four dollars is really dumb,''
she said. ``My brother won't come back. He's gone forever. It really makes
me mad.''

Thomas, who is American Indian, was buried at the Round Valley Indian
Reservation in Mendocino County on Thursday.

The boy's family acknowledged Thomas' difficulties in school and run-ins
with police, ranging from curfew violations to vandalism.

``I never had any problems with him,'' said Ernest Hoaglin, a retired San
Francisco warehouse longshoreman. ``The minor things that he did, kids are
going to get in trouble. He had a hard time in school, but he was getting
better.''

Thomas and his family went to counseling to try to work through his
problems. His educational problems stemmed, in part, because ``he talked too
much, he wouldn't listen,'' his father said.

Ernest Hoaglin said that although he wished he could have talked to Thomas
one last time, it would not help to think about that now.

``You can't say, `I should have done this, I should have done that,' ''
Hoaglin said. ``It's no good now. It's 20-20 hindsight.''

Family members said they take some solace knowing that the suspect in
Thomas' slaying turned himself in.

About 2:30 a.m. Thursday, the 16-year-old Alameda boy, accompanied by his
aunt and grandmother, walked up to the patrol desk at Oakland police
headquarters and said he was a witness to the stabbing in the 400 block of
40th Street.

Oakland homicide Sgts. Joe Olivas and Lou Cruz were summoned. They expected
a routine interview.

``He starts talking about it, as an eyewitness, and then he talks himself
right into implication, that he is the suspect,'' Olivas said. ``We took a
break, to gather ourselves.''

Olivas said the suspect, somberly but matter-of-factly, described his
involvement in the slaying. Police said the youth apparently had enough
money in his pocket to pay the $4 debt.