Home Robbery Suspect, 17, Is Accused in Cafe Mozart Killing

Authorities said Friday that a juvenile arrested this week in a thwarted home invasion robbery in Fountain Valley is also responsible for a fatal shooting last month at the Cafe Mozart in Westminster’s Little Saigon.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Anderson has petitioned the Orange County Juvenile Court to try the suspect, a 17-year-old Hawthorne resident, as an adult.

Anderson said he plans to file an array of charges against him, from murder and attempted murder, to residential robbery, assault and active participation in a criminal street gang.

“It’s not uncommon for gang members to be involved in both of these types of crimes”--home invasion robberies and cafe shootings, Anderson said.

If convicted on all counts, Anderson said, the juvenile faces maximum sentence of life without possibility of parole, plus 28 years in prison.

On March 26, two men walked into the crowded Cafe Mozart, spraying the coffeehouse with bullets. A 20-year-old Garden Grove man was killed, a 16-year-old boy was paralyzed and two women were slightly wounded in what police said was a confrontation between rival gangs.

Following the shooting, Anderson said, police identified the juvenile now in custody, and “we had every police agency in this world looking for him. We feared he would flee the state because of the mobility of Asian gang members.”

The juvenile was one of two people arrested when police were able to trace a 911 call from a home near Harbor Boulevard and Edinger Avenue in Fountain Valley during a home invasion robbery on Tuesday.

When police arrived at the house, just before 5 a.m., two of the four suspects ran out of the back of the house and drove away. Police arrested the man and the youth a short distance away, later identifying the juvenile as an escapee from a correctional facility.