THE GARDEN GROVE SHOOTINGS : Former Gang Member, Father of Two Victims, Sees Past and Present Collide

Fussing over his injured 2-year-old son Sunday at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, Frank Fernandez fit the role of worried father and family head.

But the “17th” tattooed on his muscular right arm signified a former life: that of a member of the 17th Street gang, which police say was the target of a drive-by shooting by the rival 5th Street gang of Santa Ana.

Fernandez, now 22, had married and moved from the Garden Grove neighborhood about six years ago, hoping to raise a family in a gang-free area of Santa Ana. But Saturday night, Fernandez’s past and present collided when he and his family were caught in the drive-by attack that left two dead and six wounded. His 4-year-old son, Frank Jr., was one of the dead, and his 2-year-old son, Christopher, was one of the wounded.

“I was there at the wrong time,” said Fernandez, who had taken his wife and their three children to his mother’s house on La Bonita Avenue, where they were to rendezvous with other members of the family and friends before heading to a drive-in movie.

Fernandez spent most of Saturday night and Sunday in the hospital ward where Christopher was recuperating from a cut made by a bullet fragment in his right side. Doctors Sunday afternoon were still trying to determine whether part of the bullet was embedded in the boy’s liver.

Christopher, wearing a blue hospital gown printed with clowns and little yellow elephants, seemed oblivious to the tragic event he was a part of. Sitting in a chair next to his father, he was sipping from a glass of warm milk on a food tray and staring in fascination at the adults who were entering the room. Christopher seemed to have little appetite, however. He left his lunch of ham sandwich, french fries and brownie mostly untouched.

Besides his father, Christopher’s company Sunday afternoon was an uncle, Felix Fernandez, 23, and a cousin, Steve Fernandez, 18. Other family members were dropping by and telephoning their condolences throughout the day.

Frank Fernandez said his family would be reunited after his wife, Irene Carmona Fernandez, 23, who also was injured in the attack, is released from Garden Grove Medical Center. His wife was being treated there Sunday for two minor gunshot wounds to an arm. She was expected to be released today.

Their daughter, Julieanne, 6, was expected to visit the hospital later that day. He was dreading her arrival, Frank Fernandez said, because she had not yet been told of her younger brother’s death. Julieanne was not injured in the attack, and she was being cared for Sunday by other family members.

“I’m going to have to tell her today,” Fernandez said. “She’s not going to take it well. When I told her about my dad passing away (a year ago), she took it real hard. I told Chris about his brother, but he doesn’t know. He’s too young.”

Until Saturday, everything had been going well for the young Fernandez family. He has had a good job as lead warehouseman at a food processing plant; he had just bought a new car, and the family was living in a rented house in Santa Ana--away from the gang environment where he had grown up. His wife took care of the children while he worked, Fernandez said..

“We felt like we had it made,” he said.

The couple was eagerly looking forward to next year, he said, when Frank Jr. would have been old enough to begin preschool. Fernandez was also planning to take his first-born son on his first hunting trip next year. Fernandez said he goes deer hunting every fall in the Santa Ana Mountains and that he wanted Frank Jr. to go along to watch.

“Yesterday at this time, I took him to the store to look at hunting supplies,” Fernandez said Sunday.

Although he is no longer a gang member, Fernandez has routinely re-entered his old gang turf to visit his mother’s house. Every Saturday, he said, his family has met at the house with relatives and friends to go out to the drive-in.

Had the shooting happened during his gang days, Fernandez said, he would be contemplating revenge against the assailants. He said that he and other 17th Street gang members regularly settled scores in fistfights with members of rival gangs.