Man Jailed in Fatal Stabbing After Wedding : Crime: The slaying occurred during a melee outside a reception at the Moose Lodge. Police, who do not know what motivated the attack, say the suspect is a gang member.

A wedding night celebration turned deadly when a Santa Ana man was fatally stabbed in a fight outside a reception hall, authorities said Sunday.

Daniel Adam Perez Jr., 19, was rushed to a hospital but died after emergency surgery, police said. A Huntington Beach man was arrested in connection with the slaying.

The incident began about 9:15 p.m. Saturday when five or six young men got into a melee outside the Moose Lodge at 1140 S. Pomona Ave., according to Fullerton Police Lt. Mike Stedman. During the fight, Perez, a wedding guest, was stabbed once in the chest and later died at the UCI Medical Center.

About an hour after the stabbing, police arrested Miguel Bustamante, 21, whom Stedman described as a Huntington Beach gang member nicknamed Cookie. No weapon has been recovered, and police do not know exactly what was used to stab Perez or what might have motivated the attack.

Chuck Chaidez, administrator for the Moose Lodge, said 80 people attended the wedding of the daughter of a lodge member from Huntington Beach. The stabbing happened outside in the parking lot.

“This is the first time something like this has happened since I’ve been here, and I’ve been here 14 years,” Chaidez said Sunday.

Police said they usually only have to deal with petty thefts and occasional auto burglaries at the Fullerton Town Center, in which the lodge is located.

On Sunday, teen-agers in Bustamante’s Huntington Beach neighborhood described the suspect as a popular figure with many friends who like to go to parties. The Huntington Beach gang to which he belongs has about 50 members, they said.

Children who live near Beach Boulevard and Slater Avenue said they know Bustamante for the customized low-rider bicycles he rides around the neighborhood.

But some teen-agers also said Bustamante, who has a shaved head, has a penchant for getting into fights.

“He snaps fast at the littlest things,” said an anonymous 17-year-old Ocean View High School student who has known Bustamante for the past four years.

Bustamante was arrested in November, 1993, after he was involved in a gang-related gunfight in Fountain Valley, according to police and newspaper accounts.

In that incident, a blue Honda Accord and a white pickup truck--which contained Bustamante--began racing on Warner Avenue, and gunshots were exchanged between the vehicles.

With police in pursuit, the pickup truck finally stopped near Warner and Magnolia avenues, but the car sped on and later crashed into a palm tree in the center median at Beach Boulevard and Warner Avenue.

A 19-year-old Garden Grove man and a 16-year-old Santa Ana youth, who were both in the car, died in the accident.

Bustamante is being held without bail at the Fullerton Jail.