Youth Arrested in Shooting of Girl : Investigation: The victim, wounded while walking home from school, is reported in good condition. The bullet lodged in a thick notebook she was carrying after piercing her hand.

A 16-year-old youth has been arrested in connection with a shooting near a junior high school that left a schoolgirl with a gunshot wound to the hand, police said Friday.

The teen-ager, whose name was not released because of his age and who does not go to school, was arrested Thursday just hours after the 2:45 p.m. shooting. The incident occurred a block from Lathrop Intermediate School as students were walking home.

The suspect was held on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, said Santa Ana police spokeswoman Maureen Haacker. “He was definitely there but we don’t know if he was the shooter or not,” Haacker said.

The shooting victim, Delia Rodriguez, 14, was in good condition Friday at the Healthcare Medical Center of Tustin.

“I’m a little scared, but I’m going to keep going to school. I’m just never taking that street again,” Delia said in Spanish from her hospital bed.

Delia, who arrived from Mexico just four months ago, was among a group of students walking home Thursday afternoon on McFadden Avenue.

When the cluster neared Cypress Street, several youths ran toward them across McFadden Avenue, and one of those boys pulled out a small-caliber gun and fired several times into the group, police said. The attackers then ran away, as did other, panicking students.

“We saw them signaling, but I didn’t pay attention,” Delia said. “I was walking with my sister. . . . I was about to cross the street when one of them pulled out a gun.”

A boy walking in her group then grabbed her and she now believes he might have been trying to use her as a shield. She then heard perhaps six shots, she said.

The pain didn’t come until she saw the blood, Delia said, and then she yelled, “Help me! Help me!” and ducked down near a car.

The bullet pierced her hand, then embedded itself in a thick notebook she was carrying. “Everybody says it’s amazing that the bullet was lodged in the notebook and didn’t go through,” said Martha Panduro, Delia’s aunt. “They say that’s what saved her.”

The close call bothered Delia all night along with stabs of pain, her mother said.

“She is somewhat traumatized,” said Maria Elena Rodriguez. “All night long she kept saying, ‘What if I had been killed?’ ”

Rodriguez said her younger children were too scared to go to school Friday. “We are just going to have to keep thinking of the future,” she said. “We went through too much to come here to give it all up now.”