LA HABRA : Man Is Arrested in Death of Teen-Ager

Acting on unusually candid accounts by witnesses, homicide detectives announced Thursday that they had arrested a 23-year-old man in connection with the gang-related stabbing death of a local high school student last weekend.

Ronald E. Zaring, a La Habra native, was taken into custody about 6 p.m. Wednesday as he stood on a sidewalk near his Chesham Avenue home, La Habra Police Lt. Joe Milazzo said.

Zaring, one of several suspects being sought in connection with the murder of 18-year-old Augustin Ruiz, was being held at the city jail in lieu of $250,000 bail, Milazzo said. He is scheduled to be arraigned on a murder charge in Municipal Court in Fullerton either today or Tuesday, police said.

His arrest came three days after Ruiz’s body was discovered between two East Pacific Avenue homes, less than three blocks from his Euclid Street house.

Police said the murder was gang related but declined to say whether they believe Ruiz was involved in a gang. A relative said Ruiz was not a gang member but had recently been threatened by the Peewees, a small neighborhood gang made up mostly of Latino teens.

Several people, including Zaring’s mother, Helen, said they were shocked to hear of the arrest. They described Zaring as an easygoing man who shunned violence.

“I have known him since he was little,” said neighbor Carol Schulz, a 24-year resident of Chesham Avenue, part of a quiet, middle-class neighborhood. “I would never expect anything like this from him.”

Milazzo said witnesses to gang violence are usually “reluctant (to talk) because they fear retaliation.” But they have proven invaluable in the investigation into Ruiz’s death, he said. Detectives are continuing their investigation and hope for more arrests in the case, police said.

Witnesses told police shortly after the killing that they saw several men chase Ruiz between two houses and heard screams as Ruiz was stabbed repeatedly.

Dozens of Ruiz’s friends and relatives filed through Coleman Mortuary in La Habra throughout the day to view his body and gathered at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in La Habra to pay their respects.

Ruiz’s body will be shipped to a small town in the Mexican state of Michoacan for burial, said his cousin, Augustin Juarez, 22, of Pomona who saw Ruiz hours before the killing.

Ruiz, a part-time mail service employee who had planned to attend college in the fall, came to the United States with his mother in 1982. They joined his father, who had immigrated 10 years earlier.

Juarez said Ruiz was being harassed by gang members and had asked his brother Martin to drive him to school because he feared gang members would “jump him.”

“He knew some of the guys,” Juarez said. “But it’s not like he hung around with them.”

At La Habra High School, classmates and teachers described Ruiz--nicknamed Augie--as a hard-working, bright student, but a loner.