Incident Downplayed : 2nd Drive-By Shooting Stirs Debate on Gangs

A 17-year-old youth remained in serious but stable condition after being gunned down late Friday on the sidewalk in front of a church, victim of the second gang-related drive-by shooting in Glendale in less than a month.

The shootings have touched off a debate within the Glendale Police Department over whether the incidents were isolated or whether the city faces a gang violence explosion, as one official has claimed.

While relatives and neighbors were at a loss to explain why Erwin de Jesus Sibal was the target of Friday’s shooting, Glendale police officials acknowledged that the recent drive-by shootings are the first in the city’s history. They refused, however, to discuss in detail the degree of Glendale’s gang problem.

Sibal, a Glassel Park resident and Eagle Rock High School student, was shot three times from close range with a .38-caliber gun, receiving bullet wounds to his right chest, abdomen and arm.

He had no known gang affiliation, his parents and neighbors said.

“He was from nowhere,” said neighbor Omar Escalante, 18, a slang phrase meaning he didn’t belong to a gang. “He always minded his business.”

No suspects had been arrested but police were treating the shooting as a gang vendetta.

“It has all the ingredients of a gang shooting,” police spokesman Dean Durand said. In the police report, the crime motive is listed as “gang retaliation.”

On April 26, Atwater resident Victor Martinez, 17, was shot in the head and killed at midday in South Glendale. Two weeks later, police arrested Jose Onofre Martinez, who was charged with murder. He is being held without bail at Los Angeles County Jail and will be arraigned today.

At a forum sponsored by City Councilman Larry Zarian a week after that shooting, Sgt. Don Meredith, introduced as the city’s “gang expert,” said Glendale is on the verge of a gang violence explosion.

He said that there are approximately 30 gangs operating in Glendale, that many Glendale gang members have been involved in shootings throughout the San Fernando Valley and that unless a gang unit is created and funded immediately, Glendale will be in for one “long, hot summer.”

However, even after Friday’s incident, the Glendale Police Department downplayed the significance of the shootings.

“Obviously, there’s been an increase in gang shootings, but I haven’t seen any evidence of increased gang activities in the city,” Durand said. “There are shootings taking place everywhere and it’s not surprising that they would drift into Glendale, but both shootings involved Los Angeles people.”

Durand said that Meredith was “not a gang expert,” that “some of his comments were wishful thinking” and that the department declined permission for him to grant further press interviews “because we don’t want to glamorize gangs.”

Through Durand, Police Chief David J. Thompson turned down a request by The Times to discuss the city’s gang problems.

Durand said the Police Department will not change its enforcement tactics or deploy additional personnel to combat gangs. The department, he said, does not have a gang unit and he does not foresee creation of one soon.

Sibal’s parents, who asked not to be identified, said they couldn’t explain why their son was shot. “We don’t know why, of all people, this had to happen to us,” the father said. “Erwin didn’t have any enemies at school and his friends belong to really nice families.”

Teary-eyed and visibly frightened, they narrated their son’s version of what happened Friday night. They said Sibal left the house in a van with about six other friends to go to an invitation-only dance organized by Holy Family Girls School on Louise Street and Lomita Drive in south Glendale.

Shortly before 11 p.m., as Sibal walked from the van parked in front of Holy Family Church toward the National Guard Armory across the street where the party was being held, at least one person opened fire from a passing dark blue or gray Ford Escort. Sibal was picked up by friends and rushed to Glendale Memorial Hospital, the police report stated.

Holy Family Father Lawrence Signey said he was unaware of the presence of any gang members at the party but that he would be surprised if there were none.

He said he was shocked by the shooting in front of the church, because the building had been spared the graffiti that covers signs and houses around neighborhood. “It’s scary, it’s sad, and I don’t know what we can do.”

Times staff writer Esther Schrader also contributed to this story.