GARDEN GROVE : ‘Brave’ Boy Wins Praise from Police

Chris Ibarra and his father were walking to the corner store to buy milk for their pancake breakfast last May when they stumbled across a botched armed robbery in which a security guard was shot and severely wounded.

And although there were several witnesses, only Chris was able to identify, and ultimately help convict, the three suspects who bungled the holdup of an armored van on May 16, 1991. The men, Gilbert Green, 22, and Thomas Anthony Chaney, 28, both of Ontario, and Marc A. Blount, 25, of Pomona are now serving prison terms ranging from nine to 25 years.

Standing in front of 600 cheering classmates at Faylane Elementary School on Wednesday, Chris, who is 9, received congratulations and thanks from Garden Grove police officers as well as security guard John G. Statkus, 25, and his wife, Carrie.

After the ceremony, Chris said that he was proud to help the police and the Statkus family, and added: “It felt good to help someone out. I helped someone out who really needed it.” He said he hopes he will be an example to his classmates to get involved, because “if you just sit there, no one gets put in jail.”

During the surprise presentation on the lawn in front of the school, Chris received a medal from Drug Abuse Resistance Education Officer Phil Schmidt, and a plaque commending him for his courage and service to the community. Schmidt recalled that Chris was a little frightened to identify and testify against the men at first, but said: “He had the courage to come forward. He helped the public greatly.”

Wearing forest green shorts and a short-sleeved olive shirt, Chris accepted his awards quietly and with a smile. At one point, Carrie Statkus hugged him and thanked him for helping catch the men who shot her husband.

“I told him: ‘Thank you for being a courageous young boy and being very brave,’ and that the world could use a lot more men like him,” she said. “It’s helped me a lot to put an end to it all. If it wasn’t for him, they wouldn’t have been convicted. We’re just really grateful that Chris was there.”

The Statkuses presented Chris with a radio-controlled toy car as a reward for his efforts, which included repeated trips to court to testify against the men.

Principal Margaret Ferguson said after the ceremony that she remembered the day of the shooting because of the matter-of-fact way Chris explained his tardiness. “ ‘I just saw a robbery down at the 7-Eleven,’ ” she quoted him as saying. “I hadn’t heard that excuse for being late before,” she said.