Shootings in Santa Ana Leave 5 Dead, 2 Hurt

SANTA ANA —  In one of the bloodiest weekends of an already record-setting year of violence in this city, five men were shot to death and two others were wounded in unrelated shootings.

The shootings occurred within a 30-hour period, and police said three of the attacks were apparently gang-related and happened during parties.

The killings bring the homicide toll in Santa Ana to 75 so far this year, surpassing the previous record set when 59 people were slain during all of 1991.

“I don’t know if there’s any one factor, but what we’re seeing is what’s happening in all American urban cities,” Police Chief Paul M. Walters said Sunday. “This is a national issue . . . having to do with the continuing proliferation of firearms.”

Added City Councilman Ted R. Moreno: “It seems like (the violence) is never going to end. We’re trying our best.”

The weekend shooting spree began at 3:20 a.m. Saturday, when a man was killed by a companion while he drank beer with friends outside his home on Third Street. Police said Luis Cosme Ortiz, 23, was shot in the head by one of two men who fled before officers arrived. No arrests have been made, said Santa Ana Police Sgt. Jim McDaniel.

Then, shortly after 9 p.m., officers were called to the 500 block of East Walnut Street, where 26-year-old Fernando Gomez was found dead on the sidewalk with a bullet in his head. Witnesses told police Gomez was walking on the street when at least two shots were fired from a car that drove by with its lights off. Gomez died at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

At 12:45 a.m. Sunday, one unidentified man was fatally shot in the chest during a fistfight at a flyer party at 2118 S. Orange Drive, McDaniel said. Some of the 100 party-goers were gang members, he said.

About two hours later, at another party at 316 N. Jackson St., Ronnie Tinoco, 21, of Orange, was shot dead. The party was attended by about 150 people, some of whom were rival gang members, McDaniel said.

Before the sun rose, another killing took place.

At 6:45 a.m., police found Isabel Ramos, 30, of Santa Ana, dead of a gunshot wound in the head, in an alley behind the 1700 block of Evergreen. Residents in the area reported hearing gunshots at about 2 a.m., McDaniel said.

In a non-fatal shooting, two men were wounded Saturday night at a party held at 311 S. Oak St. The victims, 21-year-old Juan Lopez and 22-year-old Moises Guzman, were each shot in the leg as they were leaving the house at about 9 p.m., McDaniel said, adding the incident was probably gang-related.

Witnesses told police a car drove by the party “very slowly and parked in the alley,” he added. “One subject got out and fired several shots at the two victims.”

Residents who held two of the parties where someone was slain said in interviews Sunday they didn’t know the victims or the attackers.

At the South Orange Drive home, two residents, Aneyda Mendez and Lori Bustillos, both 19, insisted that most of the revelers were not gang members, but belonged to “party crews” that hang out, go to the malls and even go to church together.

Mendez said she was dancing in the back yard when, “all of a sudden, I heard ‘Jerry, no!’ then bam, bam, bam!”

She said she ran out front and saw the wounded victim lying on the street near several dozen party-goers. Mendez said she and others locked themselves inside the house and took cover. About five minutes later, she said, someone drove by and fired several more shots. No one inside the home was hit.

“This was a good party; everybody was dancing, and everything was peaceful,” said Bustillos. “Everyone was just having innocent fun. . . . It’s not supposed to end this way.”

The party on Jackson Street was given by 22-year-old Ilda Quirino, a single mother of four who, with her children, lives with her parents in the one-story home. Quirino said Sunday that members of at least three gangs attended the party.

Early in the night, she said, friends patted down all arriving party-goers at the driveway to search for concealed weapons.

“These different gangs came, so (people) figured, let’s search them so nothing will happen,” Quirino said, standing on her front porch while several of her children played in the yard near the bloodstained fence that marked the shooting.

More than 50 people were packed into her front yard at the time of the shooting, Quirino said. She said she saw a group of about six young men walk past another man who was talking to two women in the front driveway.

Suddenly, a youth from the group pulled out a gun and pressed it against the head of the unidentified man talking to the women, Quirino said. The gunman pulled the trigger several times and continued to shoot even as the victim, whom police later identified as Tinoco, swayed against the fence and slumped to the pavement, she recounted.

“I yelled, ‘No!’ and he kept shooting him,” Quirino said. After the fatal shots, she said, one of the attacker’s friends pulled him away and the group fled on foot. The rest of the party-goers, meanwhile, scattered and ducked to the ground.

Quirino said she did not know the victim or the attacker, who apparently had been at the party for several hours, she said.

Police Chief Walters said officers routinely break up rowdy parties, but that authorities didn’t know about the two large weekend parties until neighbors reported the killings.

“There’s no law against having a party, per se, but if we’re aware of them, we go and shut down the parties early, and the earlier the better,” Walters said.

The weekend violence was the worst since July, when four people were killed by gunfire in a 14-hour period. The 75 Santa Ana homicides so far this year make up about 40% of the county homicide total.

Walters said he doesn’t know why the increase is so great this year. But, he said, compared to other cities its size in the country, Santa Ana, with a population of about 294,000, has one of the lowest crime and homicide rates, even though the median age of its residents is 26.

“Every study in America on crimes shows what is called the crime-prone years, which is 16 through 26,” Walters said. “If statistics bear out, then we should have the highest crime rate, but we don’t. We have one of the lowest.”

Still, in a recent Times Orange County Poll, more than half of those polled in the county said they avoid Santa Ana because they consider the city unsafe. Said council member Moreno: “It will take a while before we can start turning around the reputation of the city.”