Teenager ‘Just Starting to Live’ Is Stabbed to Death

A 16-year-old boy walking to the store was knifed to death Thursday night by five men who jumped out of a car and asked him which gang he claimed, police said.

Five suspects--ages 20 to 22--were later arrested on suspicion of murder in the beating and stabbing of Cesar Oliveras Arroyo, a sophomore at Century High School.

The killing was the second seemingly random attack in three weeks where a teenager was accosted on a Santa Ana street, asked about gang ties and then violently slain.

Family and friends said Arroyo did not belong to a gang and died during a trip to the store with his girlfriend and sister-in-law to buy shampoo and toilet paper.

“He was only 16. He was just starting to live,” said neighbor Julio Cervantes, 22. “For nothing, they killed him. For nothing.”

On Friday, family members described Arroyo as a serious boy who loved to draw and work on his low-rider bicycle. He was one of seven children and tried to stay out of harm’s way since moving to the city’s Minnie-Standard neighborhood four years ago, his sister said.

“He never went out, just from school to home, and then he spent time every day with his girlfriend,” said his sister, 22-year-old Irma Garcia.

Arroyo, his girlfriend, and his sister-in-law were walking in the 1300 block of South Standard Street about 9:20 p.m. when five men drove up in a two-tone tan car, police said. All five got out and confronted Arroyo, demanding his gang affiliation.

“The victim stated that he didn’t claim, but the five subjects jumped him anyway and began beating him with their hands and beer cans,” Lt. Bob Chavez said.

One of the men then stabbed Arroyo in the chest before they all got in the car and fled, Chavez said.

Paramedics brought Arroyo to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where he died about midnight. Doctors told the family the knife had ruptured an artery in Arroyo’s heart.

Police officers stopped five men matching the suspects’ description in a tan vehicle at St. Andrew Place and Oak Street about an hour after the stabbing, Chavez said.

Arrested were Carlos Alberto Diaz, 20; Abel Rivera, 21; Miguel Angel Tapia, 22; Guadalupe Vertiz, 20; and Jorge Castro, 21.

Chavez said police have not been able to confirm the addresses of the men, who are being held at the city jail on suspicion of murder.

Arroyo’s 18-year-old sister-in-law said the assailants hit her and Arroyo’s girlfriend before turning their fists on Arroyo and began pounding him with full beer cans before one suspect pulled out the knife.

Arroyo’s parents moved to California from Francisco Saravia, a small town in the Mexican state of Michoacan, where Arroyo was born. He was one of the couple’s seven children, who range in age from 13 to 26.

“This is the first time our family has been touched by this,” said Garcia, who sat with other grieving family members Friday in the Arroyos’ apartment several blocks from the previous night’s stabbing.

Arroyo’s mother, 46-year-old Gloria Arroyo, sat silently as other family members described her son’s love for soccer and handball, and his talent for painting reproductions of photographs for friends and family. His favorite hobby, they said, was decking out his low-rider bike, which he renovated complete with an enclosed stereo system that trailed behind.

Gloria Arroyo said she had been searching for a Tustin apartment so she could move her family away from the area. Neighbors and relatives condemned the violence that plagues the section and called on police to better patrol their streets.

“There’s a lot of danger here,” said Cervantes, who--like many in the Minnie-Standard neighborhood--comes from the same Michoacan town as the Arroyos. “There’s a lot of violence, and there are too many gangs.”

Cervantes mourned the loss of his friend, murdered by other youths in what he called a senseless killing of a Mexican “by Mexicans.”

“It’s very ugly,” he said. “There needs to be more vigilance. The police need to help lessen the gang tensions here.”

The incident bears haunting similarities to the Feb. 25 slaying of 16-year-old Dylan Urquiza several miles away.

The straight-A student from Costa Mesa had been walking near Bristol Street and Civic Center Avenue with a cousin when a lone gunman approached and demanded to know his gang affiliation.

The teen, who was coming from a family gathering, tried to explain that he was not with a gang, but the gunman fired a round into his neck, police said.