Police Seek Murder Charges for 4 Girls : Crime: The district attorney is asked to prosecute the passengers in mall drive-by death of 16-year-old.

The four teen-age girls had a lot in common, according to police: They lived in tony neighborhoods south of Ventura Boulevard, went to the same parties and hung out with two known gang members for thrills.

Now they share something else: Police are asking prosecutors to charge all four with murder in the shooting death of a 16-year-old Taft High School student at the Fallbrook Mall last weekend.

The girls were passengers in a 1992 Ford Escort that drove past Ramtin Shaolian and four of his friends Friday night as they walked from the mall’s General Cinemas Theater to a nearby Sav-on drugstore. The driver, 19-year-old Elliott Singletary, asked the youths what gang they were with, according to Los Angeles Police Lt. George Rock.

Rock said that drew a tart reply from the neatly dressed Ramtin: “Does it look like we’re gang-bangers?” As Ramtin and his friends headed back to the theater, the Escort circled around the mall parking lot and then drove past the youths a second time, headlights off.

Rock said Tommy Williams, 19, leaned out the driver’s side window, brandishing a .22-caliber pistol, and cried: “You’re not gang-bangers, huh? Well, you’re gang-bangers now!”

He fired eight to 10 times, fatally wounding Ramtin and injuring two of his friends in front of a crowd of moviegoers, according to police accounts.

One of Ramtin’s friends recognized a 16-year-old girl from Woodland Hills. Police arrested her on suspicion of murder at her home Saturday at 8 a.m., Detective Bob Howe said. Two of the other girls--a 17-year-old from Studio City and another 16-year-old Woodland Hills resident--turned themselves in to police Saturday, and police arrested the last girl, a 15-year-old from Woodland Hills, at her home, Howe said.

The girls identified the two gang members as “Chocolate” and “Ace Capone”--the monikers for Singletary and Williams, respectively, Howe said. Williams was arrested about 5 p.m. Saturday, along with a 17-year-old Van Nuys boy who police said sheltered both Williams and Singletary after the shooting and hid the murder weapon. Singletary turned himself in the next morning.

All five juveniles have been released into their parents’ custody because they have no prior records and have been cooperative, Rock said.

Williams and Singletary both have criminal records, Rock said, but he would not detail them. They are being held without bail at the West Valley police station.

Rock told a news conference at the LAPD’s West Valley station that police have submitted petitions to the district attorney’s office asking that all four girls be charged with murder and that the 17-year-old boy be charged with being an accessory to murder.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Taklender said his office had not yet received the paperwork on the case but that passengers in drive-bys can be held liable for murder even if they don’t pull the trigger. “It depends on the degree of facilitation,” he said.

If the suspects “aid, abet or facilitate the crime” by egging on the shooter or helping target the victims, they are likely to be charged, Taklender said, but if they are entirely uninvolved they may not be charged.

Police are still investigating the girls’ role in the killing, Rock said.

Friends of Ramtin’s held a vigil at the murder site for the third consecutive day, sobbing before pictures of the popular sophomore. Dozens of bouquets of flowers were scattered on the sidewalk. At Taft High School, red ribbons were handed out in Ramtin’s memory, and teachers and students cried during a moment of silence, a student said.

Rock said it appeared that the two youths fired on Ramtin because of his response to their question.

“All teen-agers have to be careful in how they respond to those questions,” Rock said. “Most of the time, an answer of ‘No’ and walking away will suffice.”

Howe said the girls met the gang members at house parties and were friends with them for about a year. “I think they went along for the thrill,” Howe said. “Hanging with the gang members--how exciting.”