Weaponless Security Guard Faces Down Shooting Suspect : Crime: The old pointed-finger trick works for Louis Rienzo, who holds the 18-year-old captive until police arrived.

Security guard Louis Rienzo didn’t bring his gun to work Saturday night, but that didn’t stop him from facing down a man whom police believe shot a teen-age boy at a nearby cafe.

Confronted by the alleged gunman, who was trying to ditch a weapon several blocks from the shooting, Rienzo simulated a gun.

“I drew down on the guy with my finger in a black glove,” said Rienzo, 26, whose guard uniform was his only sign of authority. “I yelled, ‘Freeze! Garden Grove police! Get down!’ ”

As the alleged gunman’s companions sped away, An Nguyen, 18, of Santa Ana did as he was told and lay on the ground until police arrived, according to Rienzo.

Nguyen and Tu Do, 19, of Westminster, who was arrested later, were being held on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon in the 9:38 p.m. shooting Saturday of a 15-year-old boy found inside the Cafe Pensee, 10515 McFadden Ave. in Garden Grove, police said.

The boy, whom police did not identify, is being treated at UCI Medical Center in Orange for a gunshot wound to the chest. “He was an innocent bystander” caught in the cross-fire of a gang gun battle, said Garden Grove Police Sgt. Paul Prince.

Rienzo also recovered two discarded handguns and gave them to police, officers said.

“It all happened so fast,” said Rienzo, a security guard for seven years and the son of a New Haven, Conn., police officer who was killed in the line of duty. “Who knows? If I had a gun, I might have opened up on those guys.”

The assignment on a warm Saturday night was supposed to be easy for Rienzo, a 24-year resident of Garden Grove who is married and the father of a 2-year-old daughter. The car mechanic, who works a second job with Westminster-based Gosha Security, was to help park cars at the Forty Martyrs Armenian Apostolic Church at McFadden Avenue and Euclid Street in Santa Ana.

“I get tired of carrying a gun. They’re heavy,” Rienzo said of his .38-caliber Colt revolver. “Besides, I was working at a church. I didn’t think I’d need it.”

That changed when he heard the sound of gunshots from the cafe and an exchange of gunfire between two carloads of young people driving west on Tampion Avenue, Rienzo said.

Unnoticed, Rienzo watched as a car stopped at Tampion and Maxine Street in Santa Ana--a block from the church--and a man got out and hid what turned out to be a gun in the ivy near a palm tree. The car then sped off.

Moments later, a van full of young men wearing white baseball hats drove by and tossed another gun in the same area.

“It was like they had a prearranged spot,” said Rienzo, who walked over to see what they had left. “It was still smoking. . . . I was leaning down, making sure it was a gun when the silver van drove up again.”

Rienzo said he crouched in the darkness while the suspect got out and began searching near the tree where the guns had been tossed. That was when Rienzo jumped up and confronted the suspect, Rienzo said.

“I didn’t have any choice. It was either that or start dancing,” Rienzo said. “They could have lit me up.”

Rienzo used a portable phone at a nearby residence to call the Santa Ana Police Department, which responded immediately. Garden Grove police arrived soon after, Prince said.

Do was arrested about 10 p.m. at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center. He had been taken there by someone in a private car for treatment of gunshot wounds to the back of his legs, Prince said.

“It was determined he was also a suspect in the assault,” Prince said.

Police are still looking for the other young men involved in the incident.

For his part, Rienzo said he did what anybody else should do.

“We’ve all got to stand up to these gangs. . . . Every single man has to,” Rienzo said. “The way things are going now, you can get shot anywhere in this county, sitting on your porch, anywhere.”

Sgt. Dale Farley confirmed that Rienzo assisted officers, although, besides the suspect, there are no known witnesses to the security guard’s bold action.

Farley praised Rienzo but does not recommend that others do what the security guard did.

“Following somebody after a shooting can be helpful, but it is risky at the same time,” Farley said. “We don’t like to see people place themselves in jeopardy.”