Gunman, Key Witness Sought in Slaying of 3 : Crime: City officials lash out at persistent crime at Santa Ana apartment complex near the shootings.

Police searched for a suspect and a key witness Tuesday in a triple slaying at Fairview Villas, while city officials lashed out in frustration over persistent crime at the apartment complex.

“My preference is to tear it down. It’s been a problem too long,” said Mayor Daniel H. Young. “We keep pouring manpower and energy into this place to clean it up and we get nowhere,” he said. “If we can’t get on top of this problem, we need a more drastic solution.”

Councilwoman Patricia A. McGuigan, who represents the ward, also said she was “angry and frustrated” because city officials had felt they were finally turning the tide with beefed up police patrols and community outreach efforts.

“We did a lot to help clean up these apartment complexes, and this comes along and blows up what we have done.”

The gunman in the fatal shooting of two young men and a 16-year-old boy Monday night remained at large Tuesday. Police were searching not only for the suspect but also a man who was standing with the victims near a bank of public telephones. He escaped unhurt.

“The witness took off. We are trying to concentrate on finding him,” said Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton. Police believe the witness may be fearful of coming forward.

“It could be fear of a variety of things, maybe that the suspect will come after him, maybe fear that he could have problems with the Police Department. The event itself could put the terror in a lot of people, when you see someone shooting people you’re standing right next to.”

A fourth man, an innocent bystander who lives at the apartment complex and was a passenger in a car driving past, was in serious condition Tuesday night at UCI Medical Center in Orange with a gunshot wound to his head.

Police say the shootings were not gang-related. Helton said he could not confirm a report that the gunman was seeking revenge for being defrauded in a drug deal. “Some folks out there were saying that (Monday night), and that’s something investigators took into consideration, but there’s no confirmation that’s what happened.”

Police had only sketchy information about the suspect, who was described as Latino, in his mid-20s and wearing dark clothing.

The gunman “obviously is not in the area any longer,” Helton said. “His whereabouts could be anyplace. Since we don’t have very much information about him, we have no specific direction to look. Our major thrust is to look for folks who saw something.” But after a day of searching for witnesses, investigators had “not very much luck at all,” Helton said.

The shootings occurred about 10 p.m. Monday, as the victims were standing next to the pay telephones in the courtyard area of the apartments, a massive complex at 811 S. Fairview St. The gunman had approached the four from a walkway in the complex, Helton said. The gunman immediately drew a semiautomatic pistol and began to shoot.

According to relatives of the 16-year-old, the gunman shot Mario David Mora, 23, first, directly in the forehead, and then shot Noel Herrera Arroyo, 20. Both fell to the ground and died immediately.

Sixteen-year-old Angel Brito-Guadarrama turned to run, but the gunman shot him three times in the chest, according to relatives. The youth collapsed and died about 25 yards away, near the front door of a cousin’s apartment, they said. Bloodstains on the door and doorstep were still visible Tuesday afternoon.

Luis Brito-Guadarrama, 19, said that he ran to his brother after he had been shot and tried to help him but that his brother did not respond.

The gunman then walked toward the complex’s Sullivan Street entrance. As a red Datsun approached, the gunman fired twice through the windshield and wounded the front-seat passenger, Miguel Angel Toledo Soto, 22, a Fairview Villas resident. Helton said the driver, who was unhurt, had no connection to the victims near the pay phones and told police he saw nothing.

Police Chief Paul M. Walters described the pay phones as “outside offices” for drug dealers. Although some telephone companies have installed pay phones that do not allow incoming calls, the dealers are still able to conduct their business through beepers, Walters said.

“These guys have their own offices on the streets,” Walters said in an interview. “All they have to do is to call their supplier from these phones and the transactions roll in. They run their businesses from these pay phones.”

At the request of managers at Fairview Villas last year, Pacific Bell “restricted” the nine pay phones it maintained at the complex, so that people only could place calls but not receive them there, said Cecilia Ayala, account executive with the telephone company. She said company executives prefer not to remove telephones in high-crime areas except as a last resort because many low-income residents do not have phones in their homes.

Three months ago, Pacific Bell “lost the bid” to operate the pay phones, Ayala said, and the location was taken over by the California Payphone Co. There were three telephone outlets at the shooting site, and one of the phones had been ripped out. On Tuesday afternoon, a repairman took out the remaining phones, saying apartment managers wanted them out “temporarily.”

Fairview Villas is in one of the city’s highest crime districts, according to police. In the surrounding neighborhood last year police recorded two murders, seven armed robberies, 37 assaults with deadly weapons, 50 thefts, 111 stolen vehicles, 93 residential burglaries and 230 narcotics crimes. Districtwide statistics for this year were not available.

The move by Pacific Bell to restrict use of the pay phones was part of a concerted cleanup drive in the neighborhood last year, said Lt. Robert Chavez, district commander. Chavez said he has been meeting with property and business owners every few months “to try to consolidate our concerns to see how we could get rid of the problems plaguing that area.” The group met again just last Wednesday, he said.

In addition to the phone restrictions, Fairview Villas installed security gates and lighting, he said. And security guards were hired to patrol the grounds during the day.

The changes had begun to pay off--statistics show there were 90 narcotics-related incidents at the complex in 1989, he said, and until Monday only five had been reported this year.

Latino-rights activist Nativo V. Lopez, director of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional of Orange County, agreed Tuesday that the neighborhood has been improving. Until two weeks ago, he lived next door to Fairview Villas.

When the apartment complex managers began making “visible economic improvements and investing back into the property, the problems started to dissipate,” Lopez said. “And when it seems (they were) just letting go, things got worse. It says as much about the tenants as the property owners.

“It wouldn’t hurt one bit if the city would intervene with more outreach.”

The triple homicides are a setback to the progress that has been made, said Councilwoman McGuigan, who had attended several meetings with the police and apartment complex managers to resolve the crime problems.

“The good people who live in the complex are probably saying, ‘Why bother?’ It’s a shame that we have a few screwed-up people who make life miserable for all the others.”

Times staff writers Sonni Efron, David Reyes, James M. Gomez and Bob Schwartz contributed to this report.

CRIME AT THE COMPLEX

Incident Description 1988 1989 1990* Assault and Battery 2 3 2 Assault/Deadly Weapon 12 8 1 Domestic Violence 13 9 9 Homicide 0 1 3 Narcotics Reports 48 90 5 Robbery/Person 10 8 3 Theft from Vehicle 18 11 6 Vehicle Theft 22 23 6 Warrant Arrest 31 42 11 Weapons Reports 4 4 3 Wife Abuse/Child Abuse 3 6 1

* Through Oct. 30