YORBA LINDA : $20,000 Reward Urged in Assault

Mayor Gene Wisner has proposed that the city offer a $20,000 reward for information leading to the capture of a band of Asian youths who stormed into a home, bound and assaulted family members and fled with jewelry.

On Sept. 14, members of a middle-class Chinese family were bound with duct tape while the teen-agers took their jewelry. The mother of the family was pistol-whipped, leaving her with facial cuts, a black eye and a broken hand. Brea officers, who patrol Yorba Linda, said that although the family is Chinese, the intrusion resembles home invasions that have plagued the county’s Vietnamese community.

Wisner, noting that Yorba Linda’s crime rate was among the lowest in Orange County, said the reward would show criminals that the city is serious about cracking down on crime.

“I felt now is the time to bring it to a screeching halt,” Wisner told council members Tuesday.

Wisner said he also would offer $1,000 of his own money for the reward.

“For $20,000, those people are going to come forward and tell us something,” Wisner said after Tuesday’s City Council meeting. “We don’t want to see something like this happening again.”

City Council members voted to take the proposal under study.