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SANTA ANA : Man, 19, Wounded in Gang-Related Shooting

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A bullet grazed the forehead of a young man who had just left a barber shop Sunday afternoon in what police said was a gang-related shooting.

Four men, including the victim, 19-year-old Hector Lopez, “were just minding their own business when these guys rode by on a bike” with a gun, said Police Officer Pat Pierson, who was investigating the shooting.

Lopez underwent surgery Sunday night at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital, where a nursing supervisor described his condition as serious.

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Pierson said that Lopez, his 25-year-old brother, Oscar, and two others were approaching a pickup truck outside the barber shop on Fairview Street near McFadden Avenue about 4 p.m. when two males on a bicycle--one of them seated on the handle bars--rode by and then circled.

“They didn’t really argue,” Pierson said. “It was more like a stare-down.”

The men on the bike yelled the name of a gang and then opened fire with a handgun, Pierson said.

Only Hector Lopez was wounded. The bullet “depressed the skull (of his forehead) a little bit but didn’t enter the skull or the brain area,” Pierson said. He added that Lopez “should be OK” and that, based on the wound, the weapon appeared to have been a .22- or .25-caliber pistol.

One of the bicyclists was described as being about 18 years old, while the other was thought to be about 14, Pierson said. He said it was not known if the Lopez brothers, both Santa Ana residents, had any gang affiliation.

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