Youths Yell Gang Epithets, Shoot Man in Head

An 18-year-old Buena Park man riding in a car through Westminster was shot in the head Saturday night at a stoplight after he and a friend were chased by two youths who drove up beside them and shouted gang epithets.

Frank Arellano was also shot in the arm. He was listed in “extremely critical” condition Sunday at Humana Hospital in West Anaheim.

It was the first gang-related shooting of the year in Westminster, police said.

Arellano and his best friend, Mario Garcia, had driven to Westminster to pick up Arellano’s cousin when the shooting occurred at 10:40 p.m. at Hoover Street and Garden Grove Boulevard, according to the victim’s brother, Fabian, who said he based his account on what police told him.

Fabian Arellano said two youths in the other car pursued his brother’s car, shouted the gang epithets and then “were shooting at both of them, and they were both ducking down.”

He said two bullets went through a window and struck his brother. Garcia was not injured.

Westminster Police Lt. Richard Main said the suspects had apparently asked Garcia and Arellano if they were members of a gang.

Before the two could finish saying they are not, the suspects opened fire.

“It looks like somebody was looking for trouble,” Main said of the suspects. “It probably wouldn’t have mattered what response they got.”

Police are seeking two Latino males who were driving a silver-gray Honda or Hyundai.

Fabian Arellano said his brother is a senior at Western High School in Anaheim and has been accepted into a technical school in Arizona to study auto mechanics after graduation.

Fabian and Frank are among six children of Manuel and Dolores Arellano.