Harvey Romero Jr., a 20-year-old from Garden Grove, left a graduation and birthday party in a car with four other people inside Friday night.
At about 10 p.m., the car stopped on Santa Catalina Avenue
in Stanton and the people inside started looking for a friend in the area. They talked to a group of six to eight men on
the street. One of the men on the street pulled out a gun and fired three or so shots into the car.
Romero was hit in the face. He later died.
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The car's occupants flagged deputies at Chapman Avenue and Santa Paula
Street to get help for Romero.
The murder victim has no known ties to gangs, according to sheriff's investigators.
Later that night, an SUV believed
connected with the shooting was pulled over, but two men inside bolted, running into a nearby apartment complex. They got away.
On Saturday night, SWAT team members searched homes in Anaheim and Westminster for two possible suspects.
Sheriff's officials then announced they are looking for Jorge Rafael Huante for questioning.
He is described as 19, Hispanic, 5 feet 9, 180 pounds, with
black hair and brown eyes.
Anyone with information about Huante or the shooting is asked to contact the Orange County Sheriff's Department
Homicide unit at (714) 647-7055 or (714) 628-7170 after hours.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.