2 Santa Ana Youths Killed, Man Wounded in Drive-By Shootings

In a night of bloody street fighting, two gang members were killed and a man wounded in a pair of drive-by shootings in south-central Santa Ana, police said Saturday.

Jesus M. Perez Jr., 17, and Enrique Arceo, 13, were hit by rifle fire from a passing car on Lacy Street as they rode their bicycles home from a church carnival about 9:30 p.m. Friday. Family members and friends said the two belonged to a youth gang known as the Lopers.

About 20 minutes before the killings, a 27-year-old Santa Ana man was shot and wounded about a mile away as he returned from a wake for another drive-by victim.

Francisco Hernandez was walking toward his car in the 1600 block of South Cedar Street when a dark sedan appeared and someone inside began shooting. Police said Hernandez was hit in the buttock but was not seriously injured.

Police said the sedan, which had no license plates, was the same car later seen by witnesses leaving the scene of the Lacy Street killings. It was found late Saturday morning, and a short time later four suspects were taken into custody for questioning.

But by late Saturday the four had been released and no arrests had been made in the shootings, which are being investigated by the Police Department’s gang detail.

Within hours of those shootings, three other people in Santa Ana were hit by gunfire, but those attacks were not gang-related, police said.

A 17-year-old was shot in the neck at about 11 a.m. as he stood with friends in a supermarket parking lot in the 2700 block of West Edinger Avenue. He was taken to Coastal Communities Hospital in Santa Ana, where he was reported in stable condition Saturday night. Police said they have no suspects.

The other shooting occurred about 2 a.m., when an unidentified man fired a small-caliber handgun several times into a group of people outside a house in the 500 block of South Newhope Street. Mario Pacheco, 38, was shot in the head, and his son, Alfredo, 12, was hit in the stomach. Police said they are looking for a man who had argued with the elder Pacheco earlier in the evening over the cost of a six-pack of beer.

Both Pacheco and his son were in serious condition late Saturday in Fountain Valley Regional Hospital.

“It was a long, long night,” said Santa Ana Police Lt. David Salazar. “It’s been a while since we’ve had this much gunplay in one night.”

Had Returned From Wake

It began about 9:10 p.m., when Hernandez was walking to his car from his mother’s house. He and about 10 members of his family had returned from a wake for longtime family friend, Rogelio Morales, 53, who was shot in the head by drive-by snipers last Sunday as he left his house a block away.

Police said they believe Morales’ killing was gang-related. And a member of the Lopers later said that one of Morales’ sons was a member of their gang.

Hernandez, a janitor, said Saturday that he had just walked past four youths on the sidewalk when he was shot.

“They’re always standing out there, so I didn’t think anything about it,” Hernandez said. “But then this car stopped in the middle of the road, and these guys in it yelled, “(Expletive) Lopers.”

One of the two shots fired hit Hernandez. He was treated at Tustin Community Hospital and released.

Police said Hernandez is not a gang member, and members of his family said he was just the latest victim in random shooting that plagues the community.

‘A Lot of Shootings’

“There are a lot of shootings around here,” said Gloria Ocha, 17, Hernandez’ sister-in-law who lives at the Cedar Street address. “We’d already planned to move before Francisco was shot.”

As that shooting was occurring, five teen-agers on bicycles were leaving a carnival at St. Joseph Church on Gilbert Street. Among them were were Jesse Perez and Enrique Arceo, said Ismael Martinez, 13, who rode with them.

As the group approached Lacy and 1st streets at about 9:20 p.m., Martinez said, a car with dimmed lights passed them, turned around, and headed back.

“Four, six feet from us, the lights went on high and somebody started shooting,” Martinez said. “They hit Jesse in the chest. I fell to the ground.” The car, with its four occupants, then sped off.

Martinez had fallen off his bicycle next to Perez. “There was blood all over his chest, and I picked him up and there was blood on his back. . . . The bullet had passed through,” Martinez said.

Pointing to the dried blood on the back of his gray jacket, Martinez said: “That’s from Jesse. I wrapped my jacket around him to try to stop his bleeding. He didn’t say anything. He was making this funny, gurgling noise, and his eyes kept closing. . . . He died in my arms.”

Martinez then spotted Arceo sprawled on a nearby plot of grass. “I thought he’d just fainted from seeing all the blood on Jesse. But when I crawled up to his face, I saw all this blood coming out of his mouth.”

Perez and Arceo were dead on arrival at the hospital, police spokeswoman Maureen Thomas said. None of the others were injured by what she described as a “high-powered rifle.”

Saturday, Martinez walked around the large apartment complex on Bishop Street where he and Perez lived. While Perez was a fellow Loper, Martinez said, Arceo “was my best friend. . . . I can’t tell you how bad I feel.”

Martinez said he and Arceo were repeating the seventh grade at Sierra Intermediate School because they had not passed the year before.

Arnie Perez, who lived with his brother Jesse in the Bishop Street apartment, was at his job as a cook in a Tustin restaurant Saturday, although he was “crushed” by his brother’s death, he said. A Santa Ana detective had been waiting for him at the apartment Friday night when he got home.

‘I Was Very Sad’

“He told me that Jesus had been shot,” said Arnie, whose parents live in Mexico. “I was very sad.”

Arnie Perez said his boss “told me I could go home if I wanted to. But I need the money. My family needs the money. Who’s going to pay for the burial?”

The brothers arrived in this country early last year, and Jesus, or Jesse as he was known, had worked on and off, first as a busboy and then a landscaper. But the work was sporadic, and Arnie Perez said his brother “spent a lot of time just hanging out.”

“I tried to tell him to get serious, work hard,” Arnie Perez said. “But he was just a kid, you know? Kids just like to kick around.”

At her home in Santa Ana, surrounded by family and friends, Yolanda Arceo was not able to talk about the death of her son, Enrique. But daughter Veronica Flores, 20, said: “Everybody’s sad. We still can’t believe it.”

Flores and her four sisters, ranging in age from 18 to 15, lived with Enrique and their mother, a housekeeper at a hotel.

She said she and her mother last saw Enrique at 7:30 Friday night. “We were watching TV, and he said he was going to the fair. My mother said he had to be back by nine. He told my mom: ‘I’m not going to take long. I’ll be back early. Don’t worry.’ ”