Suspect in O.C. Shootout Is Arrested : Crime: Los Angeles man is believed to have fled after the confrontation that left two people dead in Santa Ana on Tuesday.

A suspect who allegedly fled a Santa Ana shootout with Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies was arrested Friday on suspicion of armed robbery and the attempted murder of a peace officer, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said.

Salvador Gerardo Villa of Los Angeles is believed to have fled after the confrontation Tuesday with deputies near 17th Street and Grand Avenue that left two men dead, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy Angie McLaughlin said.

Authorities allege that Villa and the two men who were fatally shot by detectives were attempting to rob immigrant smugglers, who had pulled into a gasoline station for a reported payoff.

McLaughlin said Villa was arrested with 14 others early Friday when teams of sheriff’s deputies, assisted by Culver City police and U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents, served search warrants at four residences in Los Angeles and Athens, an unincorporated area north of Gardena.

Two stolen firearms were seized, she said.

Authorities believe those arrested Friday are connected to several robberies, weapons violations and a June 4 shooting in Lakewood, McLaughlin said.

On that date, she said, undercover Culver City narcotics officers were involved in a drug buy in Lynwood when their informant’s vehicle was stolen. A pursuit ended in north Long Beach with a shootout between the undercover officers and several Latino suspects. No one was injured, McLaughlin said.

Ten days later, after Los Angeles County narcotics detectives got involved in the investigation, sheriff’s deputies found a vehicle reportedly used by a suspect in the Lakewood shootout.

During surveillance of that vehicle Tuesday, narcotics detectives followed the vehicle to the Santa Ana gas station, where the gun battle occurred and the two men were killed.

The dead men were identified as Ramiro Orozco Serrano, 23, and his brother, Jesus, 20, both of Los Angeles.

Villa is being held on suspicion of armed robbery, attempted murder of a peace officer and possession of a stolen firearm, McLaughlin said.

John Brechtel, assistant director of the INS regional office in Los Angeles, said Villa and the two men who were slain were following the smugglers and waiting for an opportunity to rob them.

After the Santa Ana shooting, seven people were taken into custody and turned over to the INS for investigation.

Two of them, Juan Jose Francisco Mendoza, a Mexican national, and Jose Luis Lopez Elizalde, an El Salvadoran, are being held on suspicion of smuggling, Brechtel said.

Three others, believed to have been Villa’s accomplices, were part of the robbery attempt, authorities said.

A man and a woman told INS agents that they had been smuggled into the United States illegally from Mexico, Brechtel said.

Thirteen of the 15 people taken into custody Friday were turned over to the INS for investigation of their immigration status, Brechtel said.