Gang Action Blamed as 3 Youths Are Shot; 1 Dies : Violence: Shotgun blasts were fired from a passing station wagon at four occupants of a pickup truck. The slaying victim was a student at Anaheim High, scene of an earlier shooting.

Four youths were sitting in a pickup truck Sunday night when they noticed a gray station wagon slowly cruising by. Then they heard the shouts: “Where are you from?”

In the next instant, shotgun blasts from the station wagon left a 16-year-old Anaheim High School student, Armando Hurtado, dead and two friends injured in what Anaheim Police described as a gang-related drive-by shooting.

Police said the violence occurred about 8:30 p.m. as Hurtado and three friends were parked in an apartment complex driveway at 526 W. Vermont Ave. Hurtado, who Officer Ronald Quick said was not a gang member, was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he died a short time later.

It was the second violent incident involving youths and gangs to occur in Anaheim on Sunday. Earlier in the day, 16-year-old George Hernandez of Anaheim was shot in the leg about 2:19 p.m. Hernandez had gone to Anaheim High to play in a church-sponsored football game and was wounded by other youths when he told them the name of the street where he lives, police said.

It is not known if the two incidents were related, Quick said.

Quick said Hurtado, who was sitting in the back of the pickup, was hit by shotgun fire.

Although no motive is known, “it appears to be a probable gang-related” incident, Quick said.

The two other victims, a 15-year-old youth and a 21-year-old man, were taken to Western Medical Center-Anaheim where they were in good condition, police said. They were not identified. The pickup driver, Arsemio Olmos, 18, of Anaheim, was not injured.

Students at Anaheim High, where Hurtado was a 10th-grader, were shocked when news of his death spread across campus, Principal Craig Haugen said.

“He wasn’t a problem student, and he wasn’t a troublemaker,” Haugen said. “He comes from a very nice family, and to my knowledge he is not a gang member.”

After Haugen learned about the weekend shooting, he said, he immediately asked for a district psychologist to be present at the school on Monday.

“I’ve been on the job here 15 months and this is the first gang homicide I’ve experienced,” the principal said. “Some students are very upset.”

District administrators, who learned about the shootings over the weekend by way of media inquiries, were saddened at Hurtado’s death.

“It is a major concern to every adult around here,” said Cynthia Grennan, superintendent of the Anaheim Union High School District. “Our district has worked very hard to separate gang areas so that we can have peaceful campuses and we also have (anti-) gang curricula.”

Five years ago, as part of an effort to quell rising gang violence, the district began the Justice Project, a program at 12 district schools stressing the dangers of gang affiliation and peer pressure.

Richard Krey, the district’s gang-suppression specialist, praised the program despite the two weekend incidents.

“We know that incidents will happen, and the goal is to ensure that the campuses are as safe as possible,” Krey said.

Krey said there are 800 gang members in 35 youth gangs in Anaheim.

Olmos said in an interview that he and his friends were returning from church when the shooting started.

Olmos said the gray station wagon was in front of them at a stoplight at Vermont and Harbor Boulevard. When the light changed, the station wagon pulled out, then parked on the north side of Vermont.

Olmos made a left turn into the apartment complex when the shots were fired. One shot smashed through the back window, and two others exploded through the back and continued through the truck’s left window.

Olmos said he believes that the people in the station wagon thought he and his friends were gang members because before the shooting they shouted, “Where are you from? Where are you from?”

Cindy Leon, manager of the 48-unit apartment complex, said she heard three gunshots while watching television Sunday night.

“I’ve lived here for seven months,” said Leon, who still looked shaken from the incident the night before. “The shots came right by my bedroom window where my kids sleep. This has never happened. No kind of violence whatsoever. . . . It has crossed my mind (to move).”