Orange Boy, 12, Held in Death of Girl at Mall

As scores of gift-laden holiday shoppers watched in horror, a 12-year-old boy allegedly shot and killed a 12-year-old girl Monday evening in the bustling Mall of Orange, police said.

Jacalyn Calabrese, a seventh-grade student at Cerro Villa Middle School in Villa Park, was pronounced dead where she fell on the mall’s brown tile floor after being shot once in the head with a .22-caliber pistol, Orange Police Sgt. Art Romo said. The assailant immediately fled the mall, eluding two Sears security guards who pursued him.

After using a helicopter and police dogs to conduct a massive, two-hour search of a nearby neighborhood, officers arrested the 12-year-old suspect.

Joseph Padilla, who lives on Cumberland Road in Orange, said the young suspect, who also lives in Orange, stopped by Padilla’s house to see his son, Mike, whom he described as the youth’s close friend.

“ ‘Help me, Mike, I think I have killed someone,’ ” Padilla quoted the suspect as telling his son. Padilla said the sobbing youth would not initially say why he was upset. But the boy talked with his mother, who came to the house with police.

Padilla described the boy’s family as “a good family. I can’t believe this happened to them. My son said it was an accident and I believe him.”

Police declined to release the suspect’s name because he is a juvenile. But one witness said that the girl’s friends who gathered around her after she was shot yelled, “Juan did it! Juan did it!”

David Harris, one of the two Sears security guards who heard the shot and hastened to the scene, said a look of disbelief swept across the face of the assailant immediately after the sound of the shot echoed through the mall.

“After he shot her, he just looked dazed,” Harris said. “He just kept looking at her. I guess he was surprised he shot her.”

Fellow security guard Paul Maund said the suspect appeared to tuck a pistol in his waistband as he ran from the scene. “He was yelling a name,” which the two guards said they could not hear clearly. “He was yelling, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ ”

Witnesses said the gunshot sounded like a balloon popping.

“I saw the crowd, the girl and blood. I don’t want to remember that,” said shopper Barney Thompson of Orange. “You see a lot of TV, but this is getting kind of close to home.”

Some shoppers ducked into stores immediately after the shooting, witnesses said. Others rushed to aid the fallen girl, trying in vain to stop the flow of blood and revive her.

“I heard a pop then looked up and saw her falling down,” said Daren Martinez, who works at the mall’s J.C. Penney store. “It was crazy.”

Jon Bemmer, who was coming out of Coach House Gifts and was pushed back into the store by security guards, described the scene as “frightening.” He said he could see the dying girl’s friends gathered around her. “They were hysterical--screaming and crying,” he said.

One of the girl’s friends ran over to a Carl’s Jr., where she demanded to use the telephone, said Pammy Hickman, 17, a cashier at the restaurant. The girl is thought to have called the victim’s mother.

“Jackie’s been shot! Come to the center of the mall,” Hickman quoted the girl as saying.

Relatives in the Calabrese home, at Sutter’s Mill Apartments, declined to comment Monday night.

But word of the girl’s death spread quickly through the complex. Neighbors said they remembered “Jackie” as someone who liked school, went out with her friends a lot and dressed older than her years.

“Its a terrible tragedy,” said Cerra Villa Principal Ralph Jameson. “It’s a terrible waste of a young person’s life. She was a good young lady.” The girl had been sitting with a group of friends on a bench in front of Coach House Gifts and near a Lane Bryant store in the mall, which is anchored by a Sears, a J.C. Penney and a Broadway department store. Jacalyn was seen talking with a boy, who suddenly pulled the pistol and allegedly shot her at 6:07 p.m., police said.

Romo said officers have not determined what prompted the shooting.

“We don’t know where the kid was coming from,” Romo said. “We can’t make any determinations about what happened at this time.”

Times staff writers Dan WeikelChris Woodyard and Davan Maharaj contributed to this report.