Shooting At Essex Skyline: 3 Hospitalized, 2 Arrests Made

SANTA ANA, CA — A triple shooting at a Santa Ana high rise apartment building led to a massive evacuation and search, Thursday afternoon. The investigation revealed a drug-related robbery that turned violent in a luxury high-rise apartment building and landed three men in a hospital.

Wednesday afternoon, police arrived at the south tower of the Essex Skyline complex at 9 MacArthur Place in response to a call reporting a shooting in progress, said Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna.

The 25-story building was evacuated while officers searched for a shooter or additional victims.

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Inside the parking structure, Santa Ana officers found one man with bullet wounds to the upper body. Another man was found in the lobby with gunshot wounds to the upper and lower body, and a third man who suffered a graze wound and a blow to the head in a 15th-floor apartment, Bertagna said.

The shootings were the result of a suspected robbery during a marijuana transaction in the 15th-floor apartment.

Police served a search warrant at that apartment, seizing the marijuana, money, and two guns from the unit, Bertagna said.

The 15th-floor apartment resident, a 27-year-old man who remains hospitalized, had not been booked or arrested as of the noon hour Thursday, Bertagna said. The two other men, 19 and 25 years old, were under arrest in a local hospital.

All three are expected to survive, Bertagna said. Their names were not released.

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