A suspected Santa Ana gang member was arrested and charged with two counts of attempted murder for shooting a 3-year-old girl who was wounded while riding in the back seat of a car, police said.
Ángel 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 with shooting a little boy in Santa Ana.
(Santa Ana Police Department)
The couple, a 3-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy, were at 15th and Spurgeon streets in Santa Ana on Feb. 25 when someone fired shots at the car, Santa Ana Police Officer Natalie Garcia said.
Although the mother's boyfriend appeared to be the intended target, he said, one of the bullets went through the trunk of the car and into the 3-year-old girl. No one else inside the vehicle was injured.
The two continued driving, unaware that the girl was injured until they found her gasping for air. She was then taken to Children's Hospital of Orange County.
Police found two bullet holes in his 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 girl's father.
Garcia said the 3-year-old was still hospitalized as of Monday, but is expected to make a full recovery.
