Juvenile Charged as Adult in Attack

Prosecutors Tuesday charged a 16-year-old reputed gang member as an adult in connection with the weekend shooting of an Orange County sheriff’s sergeant.

Alejandro Valdovinos and brother Miguel Valdovinos, 21, of Santa Ana are accused in the shooting of Sheriff’s Sgt. Kurt Vasentine, 45, while the officer was checking on a suspicious car parked in a Lake Forest alley.

They did not enter pleas, and arraignment was continued until April 9.

A single bullet hit Vasentine in the right cheek at point-blank range, traveled down his neck and lodged under his right collarbone, missing vital organs and arteries. He had surgery to remove the bullet and was released from a Mission Viejo hospital Monday night.

Vasentine was resting Tuesday at his Coto de Caza home, where neighbors had placed a star-shaped sign next to his front door: “Sgt. Kurt. Our Hero.”

He smiled when he saw it, even with a swollen face and a small scab on his right cheek where the bullet entered.

“Do I look lucky?” Vasentine asked. “Because I feel real lucky.”

He said he needed time to recuperate before he felt like talking more about the incident.

As the shock of Saturday’s shooting wears off, the officer needs “some R&R;, big time,” said his father, Gene Vasentine. “I’m going to honestly throw a shield around him,” he said. “I saw him Sunday at the hospital. We had a great sense of humor between us. But after I left there, I got to thinking, ‘My God, I could have been arranging my son’s funeral.’”

The Valdovinos brothers were charged on several counts, including attempted murder, carjacking, possession of a stolen car and being gang members in possession of a firearm. If convicted, they could serve 65 years to life in prison, prosecutor Mark Geller said.

Alejandro Valdovinos, 16, is also charged with robbery in an incident a month ago. Although he is a juvenile, prosecutors are seeking to try him as an adult.

“Based upon the obvious serious nature of the crime, we elected to do that,” said Geller, a deputy district attorney in the Santa Ana gang unit. “When a 16-year-old shoots a cop in the face, short of a homicide, there’s not much more serious of a case than that.”

Vasentine, a 23-year veteran, was shot Saturday morning when he was checking on a suspicious car. A man in the car tried to run, but Vasentine wrestled him to the ground. The man pulled a gun from his pocket and fired at Vasentine, who shot back, hitting the man in the leg before he fled in a car driven by another man, police said.

In a jailhouse interview Monday, Miguel Valdovinos said neither he nor his brother was involved. He said they were visiting relatives in Riverside at the time.

Bail has been set at $1million for each. Miguel Valdovinos is being held at Orange County Jail. Alejandro Valdovinos is at Juvenile Hall.