Santa Ana Cracks Down on Violent 6th St. Gang : Crime: Four suspected members are arrested in connection with robbery slayings of two men. ‘These people are terrorists,’ police Lt. Robert Helton says.

In a major crackdown on one of this city’s most violent gangs, police have arrested four suspected members of the Sixth Street gang on suspicion of killing two men late last year.

In addition, police say, five other suspected members of the gang now in custody are under investigation for those crimes and various other robberies and homicides committed in the past six months.

“These people are terrorists,” Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton said of the gang, which he said has been linked to five fatal shootings and more than 14 robberies between Nov. 1 and Feb. 25. “Their removal from the community can be nothing but a plus. They’re not going to be out there freely running around robbing and shooting people for a long, long time.”

The recent arrests represent a significant escalation of the department’s anti-gang efforts that began last December. Until then, Helton said, most of the Sixth Street gang’s crimes--which date back to the mid-1980s--were perpetrated against other gangs. But two incidents in December, he said, showed a change in that pattern.

On Dec. 17, 1993, Rogelio R. Millan, 20, was shot to death while sitting with friends on the porch of his fiancee’s house on Walnut Street. Police determined that the motive was robbery. Six days later, Benton C. Dunscombe, 25, was fatally shot in the chest while trying to flee from gang members trying to rob him.

“All of a sudden, you didn’t have a gang out there taking out its hostilities on other gangs,” Helton said of the Sixth Street group, which has about 40 members and operates in a few square blocks near Santa Ana’s Civic Center. “What you had was a gang resorting to street crimes and killing its victims.”

With the help of a newly organized multi-agency task force called the Street Terrorist Offender Program, police began analyzing the spate of street robberies and killings in the neighborhood.

By linking the same weapon--a .44-magnum revolver--to both the Millan and Dunscombe killings, police eventually were able to identify four suspects. On May 12, they arrested Manuel Mendoza, 18, and an unidentified 15-year-old youth believed to have been the triggerman in both killings. Mendoza, who police say hid the murder weapon for the 15-year-old, was arrested on suspicion of being an accessory to murder. And on Tuesday, police arrested Alfonso Martinez, 19, and a 17-year-old boy, both reputed Sixth Street gang members believed to have participated in the Dunscombe killing and an earlier carjacking.

In addition, Helton said, three other 15-year-old members of the gang already in custody on suspicion of either probation violation or robbery are being investigated for suspected roles in the Millan and Dunscombe slayings. And two other gang members, in custody since January on suspicion of robbery and parole violation, have been linked to yet another gang slaying.

Helton promises that police will keep the pressure on the gang.

“We will pursue these cases aggressively and make other arrests where possible,” he said.