Placentia Begins Year Violently: 2 Slayings, Rape

Placentia logged no homicides in 1997, but began the new year with two unrelated killings and the rape of a 10-year-old girl.

“We’re off to a bad start this year,” Placentia police spokesman Matt Reynolds said.

Placentia officers were called to the 200 block of Melrose Avenue just before midnight Wednesday after neighbors reported a group of young men firing guns into the air.

According to police, 25-year-old Arnold Damon Perez of Santa Ana refused to drop his gun and pointed it at officers. Police fired one shot at Perez, fatally wounding him in the chest.

Perez’s family disputed the police account, insisting that Perez had dropped his gun before police arrived.

“They went too far. They didn’t have to kill him,” said Perez’s mother, Doreen Gonzalez. “They could have shot him in the shoulder or the leg. Why did they shoot him in the chest?”

Family members described Perez as a gang member who lived in Santa Ana, but insisted he did not deserve to die.

“He had a good heart,” Gonzalez said. “People in the neighborhood respected him. . .The police, they didn’t like him.”

Councilwoman Maria Moreno, who lives near the officer-involved shooting, said she is concerned about the violence but is optimistic that it’s just an isolated string of incidents.

In the second incident, Placentia police received several 911 calls Thursday afternoon reporting gunshots in the 500 block of Kansas Avenue, Reynolds said.

Officers who arrived on the scene at 4:37 p.m. found one man dead of stab wounds, a second man injured with a gunshot wound, while a woman had stab wounds. The trio, all outside in the street, were apparently involved in a domestic dispute.

Their names have been withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Late Thursday, a 10-year-old girl was abducted at knifepoint about 5:30 p.m. from Tuffree Park at 2101 N. Tuffree Blvd., dragged into a public restroom and sexually assaulted, Reynolds said.

Her assailant is described as an unshaven white man, about 35 years old. He was wearing a dark baseball cap and a dark short-sleeved shirt.

In nearby Anaheim, police contended with four men who stabbed each other outside a New Year’s party during a dispute over who would buy more beer.