Violence Mars Long Weekend

A spate of gun violence left one dead and another critically injured in Oxnard over the Labor Day weekend, Ventura County authorities said Tuesday.

The latest shooting occurred about 7 p.m. Monday in the courtyard of an Oxnard apartment building when a suspected gang member confronted four people and opened fire on them, Oxnard Police Sgt. Jim Seitz said in a prepared statement.

Octavio Lopez, 29, was killed and three others injured in the shooting. Lopez, of Oxnard, died at the scene but the other victims, two males and a female whose identities were withheld, are expected to survive, authorities said.

Police said the assailant escaped on foot before officers arrived. No arrests have been made, Seitz said.

On Sunday, employees of an Oxnard bakery were terrorized by a gunman who robbed the store and shot at them as they tried to flee, police said.

A married father of three who has worked at the bakery for 17 years was shot in the back and critically injured, authorities said. The man was in stable condition Monday at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, said Maria Leon, a worker at Panaderia Vanessa near downtown.

Three other employees who received minor injuries were recovering, she said.

“Everything is coming back to normal,” Leon said Tuesday as she rang up sales of fresh rolls and sweet bread. “Customers are saying they are sorry this happened because they are all good people.”

Some city residents worried about the uptick in violence, but a city official called it an aberration.

“Murders are down overall, and our gang injunction has been effective in reducing crime,” said Councilman Dean Maulhardt, citing FBI statistics showing such drops for the first six months of the year. “Most holiday weekends are not like this.”

Monday’s suspected gang shooting shook residents of north Oxnard, who said they have noticed increased vandalism, drunkenness and graffiti in their neighborhood in recent months.

“It’s not a happy situation,” said an 80-year-old woman who was raking up trash Tuesday in an alley near where the shooting took place. “You never know what you’re going to confront.”

The neighbor, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said youths often hang out in the alley, drinking beer and dealing drugs. But Monday night’s violence was the first she had seen in three years, the woman said.

“Oh my God, honey, it was like Iraq,” she said of the multiple shots fired. “It’s insane. Why do these people keep killing each other?”

Another woman who has lived one street over for 21 years said the neighborhood has deteriorated in recent years. She said her neighborhood council planned to meet with Councilman Thomas E. Holden to discuss their concerns.

“I want the city to come down on the property owners who allow too many people to live in one apartment and who don’t fix up their properties,” said the 63-year-old woman. “I don’t get too scared. But I’m starting to get scared.”

Inside the apartment’s courtyard, votive candles and bloodstains marked the spot where Lopez died. A man visiting the site identified himself as the victim’s brother. The man, who declined to give his name, said he was on his way to a hospital to visit another brother who was injured in the shooting. He said neither of them were gang members.

Maulhardt said the city’s decision last year to create a gang injunction zone in the La Colonia neighborhood has helped reduce violent crime.

In the first half of 2006, the city recorded six homicides compared with 10 during the same period in 2005, FBI crime statistics show. Rapes and violent crime in the 6.6-square-mile gang injunction area are also down significantly, though property crimes, such as purse snatchings and thefts, are up, the FBI report shows.

City officials are now considering a second gang injunction zone for south Oxnard to further curb gang violence, Maulhardt said.

“We have taken a very proactive stance,” the councilman said. “Our Police Department is out every day trying to prevent these things from happening.”

Elsewhere in Ventura County, the holiday weekend passed quietly, law enforcement officials said.

There were no major traffic accidents on Ventura County’s crowded highways, said Steve Reid, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol. During the three-day weekend, 37 motorists were cited for driving under the influence, on par with previous years, Reid said.

Sixteen DUI arrests were made in areas patrolled by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, Sheriff’s Capt. Ronald Nelson said.

On Monday, Baudelio Rodriguez, 40, of Camarillo was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated after he allegedly ran into a shopper in a wheelchair at the Camarillo Premium Outlets, Nelson said.

The pedestrian suffered minor injuries, he said.

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catherine.saillant@latimes.com