Gunmen Still Sought in Auto Store Shootings

Two weeks after a shooting that killed two people at a Garden Grove automotive store, police said Monday that they have no suspects in custody yet but are sifting through leads, including an interview with a man who placed an angry phone call to the shop owner 30 minutes before the shooting.

Investigators say they have two composite sketches of a suspect and hope to narrow that to one. They are interviewing customers and searching Department of Motor Vehicles records to find the owner of the gray Mazda MPV minivan believed to be the getaway vehicle.

“It’s going to be a job,” Garden Grove Police Sgt. Mike Handfield said.

The Aug. 30 incident at Robotek Motorsports on Brookhurst Street left two dead and four wounded. Police drew comparisons to a similar shooting June 3, when a gunman killed a customer and critically wounded a second person at ZOOMi Racing Automotive on Harbor Boulevard just 2 miles away.

The gunmen in both attacks fit the same description, and both struck at midday. Both stores specialize in custom auto accessories. Neither assailant said anything nor tried to rob the store, police said.

Robotek owner Charlie Kim, who was released from UCI Medical Center in Orange last week, could not identify his attacker, police said.

Police reports that Kim had had a heated argument with a customer on the telephone between 30 to 50 minutes before the shooting were downplayed Monday. Authorities are seeking that customer for questioning. But Kim said he doubted that customer would have had time to get to the shop when the shooting began. Besides, witnesses have told police that they thought they had seen the gunman hanging around the shop for about 30 minutes before the attack.

Killed were Mario Taborga, 21, of Anaheim and Tung Xuan “Tony” Ngo, 18, of Fountain Valley.

Besides Kim, the injured were Han Vo, 17, of Fountain Valley and Edward Kim, 18, of Garden Grove, who is not related to the store owner. Both were released from UCI Medical Center in Orange. A fourth victim, 15, was treated at Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center and released the same day.