Southeast : Security Guard, 21, Slain at Restaurant

A Paramount man working his third day on the job as a security guard at a McDonald’s near Compton was talking to his girlfriend on the phone in the parking lot Wednesday evening when he was shot and killed “execution style,” sheriff’s deputies said Thursday.

Family and friends pleaded for any witnesses to come forward and asked for donations to help bury Efrain Herrera Orozco, 21, a Paramount resident who in 1992 came to Southern California from Jalisco, Mexico.

Herrera, who made $7 an hour working for Trojan Security Services, was asking his girlfriend how old she would be on her next birthday when the phone went quiet. His girlfriend, Elva Mardueno of Huntington Park, said she didn’t hear gun shots.

“Suddenly his voice was breaking and then it wasn’t there anymore and I didn’t know what was happening,” said Mardueno, who works at a McDonald’s in Commerce. “I thought he’d run out of quarters, so I hung up and right away paged him. But he never answered.”

Herrera, armed and wearing a bulletproof vest, was on duty about 8:10 p.m. when the restaurant’s manager heard gunfire, went into the parking lot and discovered Herrera’s body.

“There was a form in dark clothing seen running down the alley, but that’s all we know so far,” said Deputy Melinda Hearne.

Trojan Security Services Monday had just begun providing armed security for the McDonald’s at 1150 E. Rosecrans Ave. Herrera had requested the assignment because it was close to home.