Man Accused of Driving Getaway Car in Killing Faces Trial : Crime: Police investigating the July slaying of an Atwater metal-shop owner are still unable to charge another man who they think fired the shots.

A Mid-Wilshire area man has been ordered to stand trial on charges of driving a getaway car after the fatal shooting of an Atwater metal-shop owner, but police have been unable to build a case against the man they believe fired the shots.

Raul Romero, 19, who police say is a gang member, was ordered Monday to appear in Superior Court before Judge H. Ronald Hauptman on Friday on charges of being an accessory to murder after the fact. The charge carries a maximum sentence of three years.

Detective John Munguia said police believe they know who killed Laszlo Szegedi, 39, and wounded a customer, Lorent Kis, 25, but they do not have enough evidence against the suspected killer.

“We have a strong belief as to who fired the weapon,” said Lt. Richard LeGarra. “But we don’t have anything that will allow us to go out and grab this guy.”

Szegedi was shot to death July 1 with his own rifle in the driveway behind his shop, A-Z Sheet Metal on Glendale Boulevard, after a confrontation with three suspected gang members, police said. Kis, who was standing in the driveway, was shot twice in the back when he tried to flee, police said.

According to Kis’ account, the assailants fled with the rifle in a blue car, hitting a parked brown car on their way down the street, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Enger.

Police matched blue paint left on the parked car with the paint on Romero’s car, LeGarra said. When police confronted Romero with this evidence, Enger said, Romero confessed to being the driver, but denied involvement and would not identify the assailants.

Romero pleaded innocent at his arraignment in Municipal Court July 16. He has been free on $5,000 bond since his arrest July 12, Enger said.

Another man police believe belongs to the same gang as Romero was arrested on suspicion of murder after his fingerprints were found on a beer can in Szegedi’s driveway at 3540 Hollydale Drive, where the shooting took place, Enger said. But he was released after Kis, the only witness to the shooting, could not identify him, said Detective Larry Clesceri.

Police questioned a third suspected gang member after his mother persuaded him to turn in a rifle to police in the Hollywood area, Clesceri said. The serial numbers on that rifle matched those that Szegedi’s family had given police to identify Szegedi’s rifle, Clesceri said.

Kis could not identify him either, and neither of the two is still a suspect, Clesceri said.

In an interview Tuesday, Enger gave this account of the shooting he said he pieced together from police reports:

Szegedi was driving home from a store shortly before 11:30 p.m. on July 1 when he stopped to confront several young men who were spray-painting gang graffiti on a wall near his shop.

During the confrontation, a window on Szegedi’s truck was broken. Szegedi left and three youths got in a car and followed him around the corner to his driveway. Szegedi ran past Kis, who was standing in the driveway, and into his house, where he grabbed his rifle and ran back outside.

One of the youths wrestled Szegedi to the ground and struck the rifle out of his hands while another grabbed a machete out of Szegedi’s truck. The man with the machete went over to Szegedi, dropped the machete, grabbed the rifle from the ground and shot Szegedi.

Kis started to run away and was shot twice in the back. He hid under a trailer. One more shot was fired before the men escaped in a blue car.