Leads Solid in Slaying of Woman

No arrest was made Monday in the gang-related death of an 82-year-old Buena Park woman who was hit by gunfire in her own home, but police said they had “good leads” after questioning the young man for whom the bullet was apparently intended.

Cornelia Mitchell was felled Saturday night by a stray bullet that pierced the locked front door of her home in the 7500 block of 9th Street. Police say the shot came from a passing vehicle.

Buena Park Police Lt. Gary Hicken said an arrest was not likely until later in the week.

“We have some pretty good leads . . . lots of good leads,” Hicken said. “You could say we’ve got some optimism in this case.”

Mitchell was hit once in the chest at 11:30 p.m. Saturday when up to eight shots were fired from a pickup truck carrying gang members, police said. Mitchell, who was found unconscious near her front door by a neighbor, died at 2 a.m. at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

Clemente Arrizon, 17, who had been talking with other teen-agers nearby before the shooting began, was shot once as he ran by Mitchell’s residence, trying to escape the gunfire. The bullet passed through his arm and lodged in the right side of his back.

Arrizon, a member of the Los Coyotes gang, was treated at La Palma Community Hospital and released, the police spokesman said.

Witnesses have told police that the dark brown, mid-size pickup truck from which the shots were fired contained four or five people. Someone in the truck shouted a gang slogan before the shots rang out, police said.

Hicken said Arrizon is well known to the Buena Park Police Department and has been wounded before in gang fights. Arrizon has provided investigators with enough information to provide them with some of the leads they are pursuing, he said.

“Some of the leads are based on what he has told us. Some of the things he has said have been very useful,” Hicken said.

2nd Recent Gang Slaying

Mitchell’s death was the second fatality in gang-related shootings in Buena Park in the past seven weeks. On April 11, Rick Magallanes, 17, was killed and a 16-year-old companion was wounded after an argument in the driveway of a residence in the 6500 block of Thelma Avenue.

The two victims were members of the Los Coyotes gang. Subsequently, Buena Park police arrested Amado Erick Ortega on suspicion of the Magallanes killing. Ortega, police said, is a member of the rival East Side Buena Park gang.

The latest death is being viewed by police as further evidence of a dramatic rise recently in violent gang activity in Orange County. Recently, the Board of Supervisors, citing new statistics on gang violence, appropriated $450,000 for an anti-gang unit for the district attorney’s office.

Before the unit was approved by the board on March 22, the supervisors were sent a memo by Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks that said there were at least 83 gangs in the county, up from 54 only three years ago.

The memo also said the city of Santa Ana recorded 10 gang-related deaths in 1987 and the number of Juvenile Court prosecutions involving gangs jumped from 96 in fiscal 1984-85 to 209 in 1986-87.

The memo said most of the gangs are well organized and that members are involved in drug-dealing, murder, rape, robbery, extortion and kidnaping.

“About half of all victims of gang crimes are innocent citizens living in or passing through gang areas,” the memo said.