A Slaying’s Aftermath

As he did almost every day, Vuthana “Mike” Sieng, 17, accepted a friend’s offer of a ride home after school Tuesday. He didn’t know, however, that another boy in the car was a target of others seeking retaliation.

On Wednesday, friends, relatives and students were still trying to understand why Vuthana, a quiet, hard-working senior at El Modena High School in Orange, was shot several times in broad daylight on a quiet street a block from school.

Police have charged three Santa Ana residents with murder: Michael Chu, 18, and two 16-year-old boys whose identities were not released. Police said four or five suspects remain at large.

Police have yet to identify the shooter, according to Orange Police Det. Ross Peterson. The triggerman, he said, may be one of the suspects in custody. He said the investigation is ongoing. On Tuesday, police reported that one of the 16-year-old suspects arrested had fired the shots.

Vuthana, Peterson said, was an innocent victim. A teenager in the car with him had been involved earlier in a dispute with a group of youths.

Police said the car stopped on North Swidler Street near Palm Avenue about 3 p.m., and two other cars stopped nearby. Several youths, at least one of them carrying a 9-millimeter handgun, approached Vuthana’s group.

Police are not certain yet what happened next, but at some point, Vuthana and others with him got out of the car. Vuthana was heading away from the scene.

“All of a sudden I heard ‘blam, blam, blam,’ ” said a neighbor who ran out from her house when gunfire shattered the afternoon peace.

She said she saw a young man tuck a gun into his pants and jump into one of the two cars, a white one carrying four or five others. Meanwhile, under a tree on the corner of Palm Avenue, Vuthana lay on his side, his hands bloody.

“He was moving,” she said, “but he couldn’t get up.”

Vuthana was taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where he was pronounced dead. The suspects’ car was stopped a few hours later in Santa Ana, where police made the arrests.

The site of the shooting became a memorial Wednesday. Mourners, many of them students, placed carnations and votive candles on the grass at the site on Palm Avenue. Throughout the day, motorists slowed as they passed. Some stopped to add bouquets.

Vuthana’s sister-in-law, who sobbed as she laid flowers at the memorial, said he had emigrated from Cambodia along with the rest of his family in the early 1980s. She described him as a respectful boy who didn’t go anywhere without telling his family.

She said Vuthana worked after school at his older brother’s doughnut shop in Orange. He helped bake doughnuts and was saving his earnings for college. His older brother and sister, she said, had promised to buy him a car on his 18th birthday in January.

“He was a nice boy. I don’t know why they shot him,” said the sister-in-law, who declined to give her name.

At the high school, officials beefed up security, locking gates to parking areas and bringing in more guards. Police cars patrolled regularly, and one unit parked in front of the school all day.

Police said the crime was not gang-related and retaliation was not expected, but school officials said the measures were taken to provide a sense of security. The school’s principal, Nancy Murray, said Tuesday’s shooting was a rarity. In recent years, only two students had died unexpectedly, one in a car accident, the other from meningococcal bacteria.

“Do we really think there is going to be a problem? No,” she said. “But you can’t work and can’t learn if you feel unsafe.”

The school also bolstered its staff of counselors, calling in six psychologists from district offices to help grieving students. About 40 students, most of them friends of Vuthana, requested counseling.

But others who did not know him well also sought help. Mary Wuertz, chairwoman of the Orange Unified School District’s department of psychology, said student deaths often trigger painful memories.

“Mostly they talk about the unfairness of it. ‘Why did this have to happen to such a nice person?’ ” she said.