Man Beaten to Death While Attempting to Break Up Party

A 31-year-old father of two who tried to break up a drinking party at an apartment complex carport was beaten to death Tuesday night by several men with sticks, beer bottles and a baseball bat.

Armando Salgado Arellano was struck on the head several times during the attack, which erupted about 7:35 p.m. in the 7100 block of Maple Street. He died a short time later at Huntington Beach Medical Center, Police Lt. Mike Schliskey said.

“There were several people out there,” Schliskey said. “They started with the beer bottles, then someone went to sticks, then someone jumped out with the baseball bat.”

Police said Wednesday that they were looking for five to seven men suspected of beating Arellano.

“It’s possible that a few of them had lived in the apartment complex at one time,” Schliskey said. “It seems like they were all in on” the beating.

Arellano, his wife, Sandra, 24, and their two young daughters moved to the complex, across the street from Westminster High School, about four months ago. They shared a two-bedroom townhouse-style apartment with his cousin, Erasmo Almazan, his wife and three children.

Almazan, 36, who has lived in the complex for seven years, said Wednesday that he and Arellano, a restaurant cook, had just finished watching a baseball game on television when they heard the men drinking and making noise in the nearby carport.

“Armando, my brother and I went out there and said, ‘Please go to another place. Don’t stay here,’ ” Almazan said. “Then they started fighting with me and my brother, and they came at Armando. There were too many of them for three guys to fight.”

Almazan, who suffered a broken nose in the fracas, said he saw one man hit Arellano on the head at least three times with a baseball bat. He said neither he nor Arellano knew any of the men but said they gathered in the carport regularly to drink beer and had been troublesome in the past.

“We’d call the cops all the time and say there were problems with the guys drinking beer,” Almazan said. “They’d stay there all night. They had stolen things out of cars and broken windows before.”

Police said they have had problems with visitors drinking in the apartment complex and that apartment managers have placed “No Drinking” signs in the carport area.

“It’s a targeted patrol area . . . because it’s across the street from the high school and there have been problems there in the past,” Schliskey said.

Neighbor Delores Pena, 35, heard the fight and ran out to the carport area, where she found Arellano lying on the ground. Before paramedics arrived, she said, she administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation until he started breathing.

“I was scared but I tried to save him,” Pena said. “But I knew he was going to die. I didn’t know him, but I heard he was the nicest person.”

Arellano came to Orange County from Guerrero, Mexico, with his family about four years ago. He worked as a cook at a Coco’s restaurant in Anaheim, his cousin said.

“We all enjoyed living here together,” Almazan said. “He never caused any problems. He was a good guy.”