Shootings Orange County

A La Quinta High School student was arrested Thursday in connection with the shooting of a 13-year-old girl Wednesday at the crowded Westminster Mall. Phong Thanh Dang, 18, was arrested without incident when he returned to his home in Santa Ana at 2:15 a.m. Officers had been waiting there for several hours, said Westminster Police Sgt. Bill Lewis. "The victim and the suspect were acquaintances, but they did not have any kind of involved relationship," Lewis said.

The echoes ring with a haunting similarity: A 21-year-old Cypress man with everything to live for who grew so troubled when he broke up with his girlfriend that he committed himself to a psychiatric hospital. A 33-year-old Anaheim man who could not cope when his girlfriend told him goodby. A 41-year-old Huntington Beach man, despondent over recent split with his girlfriend. In each case, love became an obsession. In each, that obsession turned violent.

Like many a reckless youth, Christopher Albert loved to party, chase women and even join in a good fistfight, now and then. That attitude carried Albert to a few flickering moments of national notoriety two years ago, when the stocky, freewheeling athlete hit the national talk shows to discuss his membership in the "Spur Posse," the audacious band of Lakewood High School students who awarded themselves points for every sexual conquest.

An Aliso Niguel High School junior, distraught over a breakup with his girlfriend Monday, put a gun under his chin and fired in front of her and other classmates, but survived. The 16-year-old boy was in critical condition Monday night at Children's Hospital at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center, after the bullet went through his mouth and out the base of his nose, hospital officials said.

Thirteen years ago, Robert Rendon's brother was murdered in a gang shooting on Rosita Place in Garden Grove. Last week, around the corner on La Bonita Street, Rendon's 26-year-old son lost a leg in another drive-by shooting. "We're strong people, but this takes a lot out of you," said Rendon, 54, a carpenter who grew up and raised eight sons in the neighborhood, which straddles Westminster Avenue--also called 17th Street--and includes a few blocks of both Santa Ana and Garden Grove.

Owners of a Westminster Mall jewelry store were cleaning up shattered glass and taking stock of their losses Saturday after a brazen robbery attempt the previous night that left one man wounded and four suspects jailed. The victim, Parounak Karadolian, 34, of Fountain Valley, a co-owner of Dekara Designs, was treated at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center for a gunshot wound to the left arm and released late Friday, said Westminster Police Lt. Richard Main.

A former Orange County high school athlete retracted his claims of sexual abuse against his adoptive father and was sentenced to 21 years in prison for killing the man. Matthew Swearingen, 19, pleaded guilty Friday to voluntary manslaughter in a plea agreement for the 1998 killing of his father. Swearingen also admitted to his probation officer that his father, Robert Swearingen, did not molest him.

A La Quinta High School student was arrested early Thursday in connection with the shooting of a 13-year-old girl that occurred in front of terrified shoppers in the crowded Westminster Mall on Wednesday afternoon. Phong Thanh Dang, 18, was arrested without incident when he returned to his home in the 100 block of South Cooper Street in Santa Ana at 2:15 a.m. Officers had been staking out the home for several hours, said Westminster Police Sgt. Bill Lewis.

A former "teacher of the year" at Sunny Hills High School was behind bars Friday, charged with shooting her former lover and another woman in what police called the violent end to a stormy, seven-year relationship.

Three people were arrested Sunday in connection with the weekend shooting death of a Colorado man who was hit in the cross-fire of a gang-related attack that left two others wounded at a crowded Little Saigon coffeehouse, police said. The suspects in the Saturday afternoon shooting were identified as Dung Le, 22, of Anaheim, Hoang Le, 19, of Garden Grove, who is not related to Dung Le, and a 17-year-old who is believed to have been the shooter, police said. Sgt.