Original Article Mom wants answers after son, 18, is shot Police refuse to give details about shooting Katie Nelson The Arizona Republic Nov. 5, 2004 12:00 AM SALT RIVER RESERVATION - Louise Wellington knows her son isn't a sympathetic character. She even admits Joseph, 18, was partially at fault Monday morning when Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community police shot him in the head, destroying his left eye and leaving a deep gash in his right shoulder. But she is confused and upset as she and family members sit at a Scottsdale hospital waiting for updates on Joseph's progress. Joseph Wellington had been driving two friends around the reservation in his mom's car. Duane Santo, 17, was there, sitting in the back seat. "We were kicking back at a friend's house but had come back onto the rez," he said. "That's when a cop started to follow us." An officer spotted Wellington speeding and tried to pull him over just after 4 a.m. using lights and sirens. Wellington didn't want to stop because a third teen in the car was wanted on a warrant, Santo said. It turned into what law enforcement officials call a "slow-speed chase." Wellington was shot after several squad cars blocked his vehicle. "Joe was trying to drive around them, and he hit a car," Santo said. "And this cop ran up and it looked like he tried to break the window. We went back a little and that's when I heard a shot." Despite her son's role in the incident, Wellington's mother is upset. "I don't understand why they didn't shoot the tire, or use a stop stick," she said quietly from a couch in the intensive care waiting room at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn hospital. Lt. James Sutphen, a spokesman for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community police, refused to release the names of the officers involved or specifics of the shooting. The Wellington family, part of the Pima-Hopi tribe, have lived on the reservation all their lives. Over the years many of the family's young men have joined a West Coast-based gang, and many are now in jail, Louise Wellington said. She knows her son, who is awaiting reconstructive surgery, hasn't made good choices. "He's been in and out of jail," she said. "How many times? More that I take on and off my shoe." She worries it could happen again, now that he was charged with assault in federal court as a result of Monday's incident. But her son is a man, and his choices are his own. "I can talk to him, but I can't make up his mind," she said. So she'll stay seated in the hospital emergency room until the next visiting hours. "He's trouble, his friends are trouble, but he's still my son." Reach the reporter at katie.nelson@arizonarepublic .com.