LOCAL : 4 Teen-Agers Arrested in Stanton Drive-By Slaying

A team of 42 law enforcement officials raided four locations in Orange County this morning and arrested two teen-agers in connection with a fatal drive-by shooting of a 16-year-old Stanton youth last month.

Two other youths who were already in custody for an unrelated incident were also charged this morning with the drive-by slaying of Johnny Casillas Jr. on July 21. Casillas was shot while walking at night to his grandmother’s house in Stanton.

The 9:45 a.m. raids took place at two locations in Garden Grove and two locations in the unincorporated area of Anaheim. They were conducted by the Sheriff’s Department’s gang-prevention unit, probation officers and juvenile authorities.

Sheriff’s officials said that Casillas may have been the victim of a random shooting by gang members but that there is no evidence that he himself was in a gang.

The Big Stanton gang and its rivals, Colonia Independencia, whose members live in the unincorporated Anaheim area, have stepped up their longstanding feud since the March shooting death of Rosendo Ibarra, 17. Family members say Ibarra was associated with Colonia Independencia.

Those arrested during the raids today included a 15-year-old from Garden Grove and a 15-year-old from Anaheim, said Lt. Richard Olson, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman. Their identities were withheld because of their ages.

The two already in custody and charged in the Casillas shooting today were a 15-year-old from Anaheim and a 14-year-old from Garden Grove. Both have been in custody since July 26, when they were arrested on concealed-weapons charges.

Olson said the arrests were made after police found an abandoned late-model red Nissan Sentra believed to have been used in the drive-by shooting of Casillas. The car, found in Stanton a few hours after Casillas was shot, contained evidence that linked at least three of the juveniles to the shooting, Olson said.