Buena Park : Gang Link Suspected in Shooting of 3 Men

Three young men were wounded at a party in a shooting that Buena Park police said Sunday may be gang-related.

Most critically injured in the Saturday night shooting incident was a teen-age boy who was shot in the chest, police officer Rich McMillen said. The boy, identified as Eugene Banuelos, 17, of Stanton, was listed Sunday night in serious condition at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Trauma Center, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The other victims--identified as Albert Mora, 20, and Saul Hernandez, 22, both of Stanton--suffered minor leg wounds. They were treated at the Fountain Valley hospital and later released, police said.

The shooting occurred shortly after 11 p.m. at a party in the 7100 block of El Rey Drive. According to McMillen, about 40 “young adults” were standing in the front yard of the home when, for unknown reasons, a gunman approached the group and opened fire.

The suspect, who witnesses described as about 19 or 20 years of age, fired five or six shots from a handgun, then fled on foot.

The shooting is “probably gang-related,” said Lt. Dick Hafdahl, who noted that among the 40 people present--many of them members of a Stanton street gang--not one claimed to have recognized the gunman. But the Stanton gang members told officers that they had been having no problems with rival gangs, he said.

The gunman “just walked up and opened fire,” Hafdahl said. “He didn’t say anything . . . (That) tends to support the theory” that the assailant was from “a different gang.”

An investigation into the shooting was continuing, police said.