Tustin Man Is Fatally Beaten at Complex : Slayings: In separate incidents, a jewelry store owner is shot to death in Westminster, and another man is fatally shot in Anaheim while walking with his girlfriend.

Three men were fatally wounded in separate incidents in a rash of violence throughout Orange County during the last weekend of the year.

A man was fatally beaten early Saturday as he apparently waited to be let into his gated apartment complex. Tustin police are investigating the possibility that the crime was linked with several other attacks in Santa Ana and Orange by assailants wielding baseball bats.

In Westminster, a jewelry store owner was shot to death Saturday afternoon when he exchanged gunfire with two men attempting a daytime robbery of the store in a busy Beach Boulevard shopping center.

And in Anaheim, a 29-year-old man was shot Friday as he walked with his girlfriend and died of his wounds early Saturday, Anaheim police said.

Police had no suspects Saturday in any of the attacks.

In the Tustin incident, Froylan Velasquez, 26, walked home from work at a nearby Carl’s Jr. on Saturday and was found severely beaten and partly crouched under a car just outside the security gates of his apartment complex on Pasadena Avenue about 1:20 a.m., police and witnesses said.

“All I could see was blood,” said Dawnelle Feller, an apartment resident who saw Velasquez under the car. “There was a lot of blood.”

Velasquez died of head injuries at 10:40 a.m. at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Less than 3 miles away in Orange, a 29-year-old Santa Ana man who was riding his bicycle home from work on North Tustin Street was attacked by a man with a baseball bat about 1 a.m., Orange Police Sgt. Robert Gustafson said.

“Initially, he was struck by one suspect with a bat, and another suspect removed his wallet, and then, during the course of the attack, several other assailants kicked and beat him,” Gustafson said.

The man, who suffered a broken bone in his face and injuries to the left eye and kidney, could not specify the number of attackers but described them as men ages 17 to 23, Gustafson said. Police are withholding the man’s name to protect his safety.

Tustin police said they were looking into the possibility that the attacks might be linked, noting that they had heard of several similar incidents elsewhere in the county.

“People were being struck by people with baseball bats or clubs,” Tustin Police Lt. Frank Semelsberger said.

All of the bat attacks took place from 11 p.m. Friday to 2:30 a.m. Saturday, Semelsberger said.

Horrified residents at the La Posada apartment complex in Tustin said they know of no one who witnessed the Velasquez beating.

The manager of the complex, Donna Hegley, whose apartment overlooks the parking lot where Velasquez was found, said she was watching “Late Night With David Letterman” with a friend when they heard a vehicle with a small diesel engine drive up. Then they heard the slamming of three car doors. They did not hear voices, but they did hear what sounded like a 2-by-4 being thrown.

“It sounded like someone threw it underhanded and it hit the ground and bounced one or two times,” said the friend, Ron Rondinelli.

He said he stepped outside but saw nothing unusual.

A few minutes later, Feller drove in through the security gate about 15 feet from where Velasquez was found and also noticed nothing unusual. She said she dropped off a friend, then parked inside the gate, about 30 feet from the spot. As she left her car, she said, a group of young people called out to her, asking her to call 911.

By the time she returned, the young people had flagged down a passing police officer, she said. The young people said they did not know Velasquez.

Some of the victim’s pocket contents were strewn on the ground, but it was not clear whether he had been robbed, Semelsberger said.

Traces of blood remained in the parking lot Saturday, but the piece of wood was not found, nor was a murder weapon, police and witnesses said.

Hegley said she believes that Velasquez, who moved into the complex with his brother and his brother’s wife a month ago, had given his security card to his girlfriend, and was waiting outside the gate to be let into the complex.

In the Westminster robbery and shooting, Duyet Dinh Vu, 42, owner of the Gold Port Jewelers in the 15000 block of Beach Boulevard near McFadden Avenue, died during surgery at UCI Medical Center in Orange shortly after the 4:30 p.m. robbery Saturday. He had been shot twice in the chest.

Witnesses said two men were seen leaving the store after the shooting, jumping into a tan Ford Bronco II pickup truck and driving away. Police were searching for the vehicle late Saturday.

“Right now there is no known loss at the store,” said Westminster police watch commander Bob Amren.

When one or both of the men pulled a gun on Vu, Amren said, the owner apparently got a gun of his own.

“We aren’t sure what happened right now, but we do know there was an exchange of shots between the gunmen and the owner,” Amren said.

He added that it is unknown whether either of the gunmen was wounded.

The store is in a busy shopping center one block north of the San Diego Freeway, with a K mart and several other smaller shops.

Robert Madsen, owner of the Tina Marina pizza restaurant near the jewelry store, was saddened by Vu’s death.

“They are a really nice family,” he said. “They’ve only been here (in the shopping center) a few months, but they are really hard workers. Everybody around here really liked them.”

Police said witnesses identified one assailant as a black man who was driving the vehicle, 30 to 35 years old, 6 feet, 4 inches and about 250 pounds, with a long Afro haircut. The other was a white man, 20 to 25 years old, 5 feet, 10 inches and 170 pounds, with blond hair short on the sides but long in back.

In the Anaheim incident, police were called to a shooting in the 900 block of North Olive Street about 8:25 p.m. Friday. When they arrived, they found Jose Luis Parra lying on the sidewalk with a gunshot wound in the upper body. Parra died at UCI Medical Center in Orange at 4:30 a.m. Saturday, according to a statement released by Anaheim Police Sgt. Chet Barry.

Parra and his girlfriend were walking down the street when they were approached by two men. One of them pushed the woman to the ground while the other shot Parra, then both ran away, the statement said. The attackers did not demand money, the statement said.

Police had no description of the suspects.