Teen Shot in Fight Outside High School

A Santa Ana teen was shot and wounded Tuesday afternoon during a fight in front of Newport Harbor High School that police say was gang-related.

The 17-year-old victim, his girlfriend, and a male friend had stopped at the school about 3 p.m. to visit a friend, a freshman girl, police and students said. School had let out about 35 minutes earlier.

They got out of a Toyota Camry across the street from St. Andrews Presbyterian Church to talk to their friend, police said. Then a car containing four Latino males, all believed to be in their teens, pulled up and exchanged words and gang signs with the teenage boy, police said. A fistfight then broke out.

Sometime during the fight, one of the teens pulled a gun and fired one shot, hitting the Santa Ana youth in the abdomen, police said. The shooter and his three friends fled in a mid-1980s four-door Oldsmobile or Buick, white or light blue with front-end damage, Police Sgt. John Desmond said. They remain at large, police said.

The victim and his companions piled into the Camry and sped to the end of the block, where a Newport Beach police motorcycle officer was writing a ticket, police said. The officer called paramedics and the victim was taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where he was in guarded condition Tuesday night. The wound is not life-threatening, police said.

None of the teens involved were named, because of their ages.

“We do occasionally have gangs from other areas come here and meet up,” Desmond said. “It does happen occasionally, but not very often.”

Investigators questioned the victim’s three companions: the Camry driver, who is also a 17-year-old male from Santa Ana, the 15-year-old girl they came to talk to and the victim’s 15-year-old girlfriend, a freshman who left Newport Harbor High at the beginning of the school year.

After police swarmed into the neighborhood, the students who remained on campus for extracurricular activities flocked to the taped-off crime scenes at either end of 15th Street and asked if any classmates had been injured.

“I heard a gunshot when I was walking across the street,” a 14-year-old freshman girl said. “It kind of shook me up. I was shaking a lot.”

While they expressed regret about the incident, school officials were thankful none of their students were hurt.

“We’ve had enough bad times in the last year. We don’t need this,” Assistant Principal Lee Gaeta said.

A senior prank last May caused $10,000 damage to the school, with graffiti painted on the walls and concrete poured down drains. But the incident that shook the emotional foundation of the school was the crash May 23 of a sport-utility vehicle carrying 10 Newport Harbor High students.

The crash killed 18-year-old Donnie Bridgman and critically injured Amanda Arthur and Daniel Townsend, both also 18. The 18-year-old driver, Jason Rausch, faces trial on vehicular manslaughter and reckless driving charges.

Anyone with information about Tuesday’s shooting is asked to call Newport Beach police at (800) 550-NBPD.