Toddler was shot as she rode in car’s back seat. Santa Ana man now under arrest

A suspected gang member from Santa Ana was arrested and charged with two counts of attempted murder in the shooting of a 3-year-old girl who was wounded while riding in the back seat of a car, police said.

Angel Castillo, 20, was allegedly trying to shoot the man in the front seat of the car, identified as the boyfriend of the girl’s mother.

Castillo was arrested Thursday in Santa Fe Springs, Santa Ana police said in a statement Monday.

He faces two counts of attempted murder, as well as charges of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle and committing the crime for the benefit of a street gang.

Angel Castillo was arrested and charged in the shooting of a toddler in Santa Ana.

(Santa Ana Police Department)

The couple, the 3-year-old girl and a 4-year-old were at 15th and Spurgeon streets in Santa Ana on Feb. 25 when someone fired at the car, said Santa Ana Police Officer Natalie Garcia.

Although the mother’s boyfriend appeared to be the intended target, she said, one of the bullets pierced the trunk of the car and found its way to the 3-year-old girl. Nobody else inside the car was wounded.

The two continued to drive, unaware that the girl was wounded until they found her gasping for air. They then drove her to Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

Police found two bullet holes in their white sedan.

Police had initially identified the two adults in the car as the girl’s parents, but Garcia said the mother’s boyfriend was not the child’s father.

Garcia said the 3-year-old girl was still hospitalized as of Monday but is expected to make a full recovery.