Home Invaders Still Hold 1 of 6 Hostages : Crime: A daylong standoff between police and 2 gunmen continues after a botched robbery attempt. Five children have been freed.

A tense daylong standoff between police and two hostage-takers continued late Thursday night as the assailants refused to release the last of six people taken prisoner in a house after a botched “home-invasion” robbery.

Three of the hostages--a 12-year-old girl and two boys, ages 1 and 2--were let go shortly before 1 p.m., and two more girls--ages 3 and 5--were released about 5 p.m. after police provided the gunmen with a “getaway” car to meet their demands. The robbers still held a 21-year-old woman who was believed to be the mother of the four youngest children.

The hostages were all members of an extended family of Cambodian immigrants, according to Sokphy Chhin, a 29-year-old relative who spoke to reporters at the scene.

Authorities described the two gunmen as being of Vietnamese origin, but it was unclear if they were involved in Southeast Asian gang activity. Robbery was apparently the initial motive.

The method of attack (police say the invaders initially stormed a nearby home and tied up six victims in an apparent robbery attempt) was similar to the so-called “home-invasion” robberies that Southeast Asian gang members have staged elsewhere in Southern California, particularly Orange County, always victimizing other southeast Asian immigrants. But such assaults had not occurred previously in San Bernardino, said Lynn Le Roy, a police spokeswoman.

The ordeal began after police responded to a report of a robbery at a home in a quiet, racially mixed neighborhood at 12:20 a.m. Police discovered six people, all Cambodian immigrants, bound, but otherwise unharmed. The house had been ransacked.

The 12-year-old girl had either fled the targeted home for a nearby home where relatives lived, police said, or had been forced by the attackers to lead them to the house.

When police went to the second home, they were met by a shotgun blast. Officer Gordon Jones was slightly wounded in the forehead. He was taken to Loma Linda University Medical Center, treated and released.

That was the only shot that had been fired in the incident by late Thursday afternoon.

Residents from at least seven surrounding homes were evacuated as police blocked off streets. Classes were canceled at Victoria Elementary School before the 750 students began arriving. Principal Stan Snyder said school buses ran their regular routes, but drivers handed out notices of a school holiday instead of picking up students.

Police converted the school into a command center, posted snipers on the roof of a neighborhood house and opened negotiations on a special telephone hookup.

Shortly before 1 p.m. the 12-year-old girl emerged from the house with a toddler in her arms. She then re-entered the house and emerged with another child and ran to safety.

Police spokesman Le Roy declined to describe negotiations with the gunmen in detail, beyond saying that the hostage-takers had asked for the getaway car.

The victims’ relative, Chhin, identified the family members who were held as her sister, Nary Chhin, 21, and her sister’s two daughters, Kontha, 5, and Konsomaly, 3. Also held were her sister’s sons, Many, 1, and Konthty, 2, and their 12-year-old cousin, Lack Samy.