After a 16-year-old flagged down St. Paul police and reported his 15-year-old friend was shot, he told police they were targeted because they were from the city’s West Side.

But as police built their case, they accused Oscar Edwardo Cervantes of not being truthful in his accounts of how Angel Reyes Hernandez was killed.

Prosecutors charged Cervantes on Thursday with second-degree murder without intent. He is accused of shooting Hernandez in an apartment, while a young child was in the room, and dumping Hernandez’s body in the parking lot of Arlington Arkwright Park.

Cervantes went to get help from a passing squad car on Sunday at 12:13 a.m., but police were later provided with a Snapchat video Hernandez sent out around midnight.

The video showed Cervantes pointing a firearm at the camera and at Hernandez, according to a juvenile petition filed against Cervantes.

Two adult witnesses told police that Cervantes and Hernandez had been sitting next to each on a couch in an apartment. A man heard the teens arguing, then a gunshot and Cervantes yell he had shot Hernandez, the petition said.

Cervantes demanded the man help him dispose of Hernandez’s body, the petition said. The witness told police he was afraid because Cervantes had a gun and he helped load Hernandez’s body into a vehicle.

They drove to the Arlington Arkwright dog-park parking lot, Cervantes pulled Hernandez’s body into the lot and the witness took off, the petition said.

An autopsy found Hernandez was shot in the head and possibly the hand.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office is seeking to have Cervantes tried as an adult.

Both teens were students at Humboldt High School in St. Paul — Hernandez was a ninth-grader and Cervantes is in 11th grade.

The school district’s crisis team, which consists of social workers and counselors, plans to be at Humboldt athletic events on Friday and at the school on Wednesday when classes resume from winter break, according to a district spokesman.

MOTHER OF TEEN CHARGED SAYS THEY WERE BEST FRIENDS

On Monday, before police arrested Cervantes, Cervantes’ mother said he and Hernandez were best friends.

Simona Najera, who couldn’t be reached for comment on Thursday, said Hernandez was living with a relative before he came to stay with them in recent months. She said she considered Hernandez as a son and was mourning his loss.

Najera said on Monday they had just talked to the police again and an investigator was “trying to make it look like my son did something, so now we’re super stressed.” She said the investigator was telling Cervantes, “You’re not mourning nothing, you’re not mourning nothing. That wasn’t your best friend.”

But Cervantes told his mother that Hernandez died in his arms, she said as she cried on Monday.

Hernandez was a good influence on Cervantes, Najera said. Hernandez stopped hanging out with young people whom he got in trouble with in the past, and he persuaded Cervantes to stop talking to them also, she said.

“They were each other’s motivation to do better,” Najera said.

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Suspect sends Rochester police suicidal messages, flees, dies causing head-on collision In May, Cervantes was charged with burglary of a West Side residence.

A judge ordered him to complete community service and put him on probation that was scheduled to end Dec. 16. But his probation officer filed an allegation with the court on Dec. 12 that Cervantes wasn’t complying with conditions of his probation and a hearing was scheduled for Jan. 8, according to a Ramsey County Community Corrections spokesman.

POLICE TOLD TEEN HAS GANG TIES, ANGER PROBLEM

A person who called police on Monday reported Cervantes shot Hernandez and was now going to flee. The person “was reluctant to come forward,” “is afraid of Cervantes” and “stated Cervantes has gang ties and a serious anger problem,” according to the petition against him.

Cervantes told the person the shooting was an accident. He said he was angry after Hernandez pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger, so he grabbed the gun, pointed it at Hernandez and shot him in the head, the petition said.

The juvenile petition doesn’t specify where the gun came from.

The adults in the apartment reported they were there with young children. The man whom Cervantes demanded help from told police that “Cervantes was aware he would not have allowed a gun in the apartment,” according to the petition.

The other witness said a young child was sitting in a bouncy chair in the living room when the shooting happened.

VARIOUS ACCOUNTS FROM 16-YEAR-OLD

After Hernandez’s body was found in the corner of the parking lot at Arlington Avenue and Arkwright Street, Cervantes was brought to police headquarters and spent about 10 hours there. He was interviewed at length.

First, Cervantes said he and Hernandez walked from a relative’s apartment to a nearby gas station and bought marijuana. They went to the dog park and were smoking marijuana when a vehicle pulled into the lot, people yelled gang slang at them and Hernandez was shot. He told police there were four black males in the car, the petition said.

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Suspect sends Rochester police suicidal messages, flees, dies causing head-on collision “Investigators confronted Cervantes with evidence that seemed to contradict the version of events he … had given,” according to the petition. “Cervantes changed his story and stated he had never went to a gas station and that the drug deal happened in the parking lot” where Hernandez was killed. He then “changed his story again,” the petition again.

On Monday, police received accounts from witnesses at the apartment. A man told police that in addition to taking Hernandez’s body out of the apartment, they loaded a bloody couch into the vehicle and put it in a nearby dumpster. Police found the couch.