Man Shot--Refused Beer to Stranger

A 45-year-old Los Angeles man was shot during a family birthday party in Santa Ana late Saturday because he refused beer to strangers, the second such incident in the violence-prone neighborhood in 11 days, police said.

Othoniel Alvarez remained hospitalized in serious condition Sunday, and his attackers had not been captured, police and relatives said.

Alvarez was shot at 8:35 p.m. in the 900 block of West Walnut Street at his brother’s home, where he was attending a cousin’s 31st birthday party along with 60 or 70 relatives. About half a mile away on July 25, a man was killed and four others were wounded by gunfire when the victims refused beer to strangers.

Police attributed the earlier incident to gangs, though they made no such link to Saturday’s shooting. Neighbors, however, did.

On Saturday, as Alvarez sat by an open garage near an alley at the back of the property, police said, a white 1977 or 1978 model Chevrolet pulled up, with two young Latino men inside. Witnesses told police the pair looked 17 or 18 years old. They asked for beer.

“When their request was refused, the driver fired one shot from a semi-automatic handgun,” said Sgt. Joe Esther, “then fled the scene.”

The bullet entered Alvarez’s hip and emerged through his right buttock, police and relatives said. There were no other injuries.

Esther said that a “.38 Super”--which has a muzzle velocity just below that of a .357 Magnum--may have been used to shoot Alvarez.

Condition Serious, Stable

Alvarez, an unemployed laborer whom relatives described as the father of three married daughters and a teen-age son, remained in serious but stable condition Sunday night at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, his family at his bedside.

Sandra Rosiles, whose family hosted the party at their home, said her uncle was sitting several feet from the garage on a wooden bench, beside a plastic tub filled with beer, as others barbecued a pig and played Mexican music. Though she did not see her uncle shot, Rosiles said other

party-goers said the young gunman strode over to the beer tub and “my family believes he (Alvarez) was the one who said, ‘No.’ ”

Some residents near the scene of the shooting said Sunday they no longer feel safe in their gang-troubled Santa Ana neighborhood, which is a block south of 1st Street between Flower and Bristol streets. Graffiti covers most wooden fences, utility poles, some stucco homes--even a few vehicles left unprotected in carports--along the alleys in the older neighborhood. Residents speak to strangers through locked black metal screen doors.

“This is (gang) territory here. Here in this block there’s a lot of people killed,” said Sandra Rosiles, 18, who works full time labeling hospital oxygen bottles for a Santa Ana company.

The Rosiles family--Sandra, her father, Arturo Rosiles, and her mother, Marcelina Rosiles--moved into the home two or three months ago. They had lived at Cedar Street and St. Andrew Place, Rosiles said, where it was safer.

Their pet boxer puppy was stolen in their

first month at the rented Spanish-style Walnut home. Several hours before the shooting a bag of trash was dumped on their lawn, she said.

She would like to move but realizes her father wants to buy the home, neatly kept and freshly painted.

“I was here until 8 or 8:30 (Saturday night) and then I went to a party, but oh, My Lord!” she said Sunday, as several cousins who had witnessed the shooting dropped by the home at various times. Her father, a construction worker, had been in Tijuana and returned home after his brother was shot. Her mother, a seamstress for a mattress manufacturer, had been saying goodby to relatives at the front of the house when the white Chevrolet pulled up at the back.

“My Mom told me about it this morning and heavenly God! I am afraid. You just want to get away from these gangs and killings. . . . Some of my relatives live in Ontario because they do not think it’s safe in Santa Ana.”

sh Others Nonchalant

Last week, she said, a gang member grabbed her en route to the store. “I would have smacked him, but he was on a bike and I was walking,” she said, her voice faltering slightly. “I’m afraid to leave my house. Once you are outside here you don’t ever know if a (gang member) is going to drive by and shoot you. For nothing. No reason.” Other residents seemed nonchalant and resigned Sunday about the violence, saying they don’t worry about themselves much--as long as they stay indoors after dark.

“They were probably drunk and just drove by,” Maria Gonzalez, 21, who lives across the alley from the Rosileses, said of the attackers. She shrugged as if to say this was explanation enough. “You grow up with it. . . . It’s like they aren’t gonna hurt us because we live here. But if you come into the area and they don’t know you, it is kind of scary, though.”