Family That Saw Shooting Is Terrorized : Crime: A gang is allegedly harassing a Santa Ana household to prevent testimony in a fatal shooting. One arrest has been made.

Isabel and Ralph Rodriguez and their four young children have been living under siege.

After 14 years of peace on a residential block in Santa Ana, the Rodriguez family witnessed one of Orange County’s worst drive-by shootings last September.

Ever since, members of a notorious street gang have terrorized the family to frighten it out of testifying against their “home boys.”

“We have been living three months now in pure hell,” Isabel Rodriguez said Friday, her voice filled with frustration. “We have had firebombs thrown at us, handmade (Molotov) cocktails thrown through a window where my baby was sleeping. Now my children have to sleep on the floor because you never know if they’ll come by shooting.”

Rodriguez, 34, who flashes with anger as she talks about the gangs, said she refuses to give in. In a move she hopes will end the threats, Santa Ana police searched six houses, arresting one reputed gang member Thursday. Two others are sought.

Richard (Sleepy) Ramirez, 21, of Santa Ana was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy and intimidation of a witness. Named in arrest warrants with the same charges were Randall Gilbert (Speedy) Martinez, 20, and Joel Villarreal (Chim Chim) Delarosa, 15, both of Santa Ana.

All three suspects, whose bail was set at $25,000 each, were identified in police records as members of the 5th Street gang. Police have authorization from the judge to arrest other members of the gang if implicated in the intimidation incidents.

The alleged harassment stems from the night of Sept. 16, when reputed members of the 5th Street gang sprayed gunfire into a group standing in front of a house on Bonita Avenue in nearby Garden Grove as the Rodriguez family watched. Isabel Rodriguez’s cousin, 4-year-old Frank Fernandez Jr., and a 17-year-old boy from the rival 17th Street gang were killed and several others were wounded.

Three reputed members of the 5th Street gang are awaiting a preliminary hearing scheduled for February on murder charges.

Isabel Rodriguez said the harassment started soon after the shooting. At first, she said, the gang members would drive by her modest brown house yelling, “Snitches!” and “Rats!” They would confront her young children with taunts and threats.

“What are we snitching on?” she asked. “It was our family that was devastated and hurt. Do they want us to take a gang member’s side over our own blood?

“We feel like we’re the ones who did the actual killing because of all the harassment we’re getting. We should be harassing them for killing one of our family members. We want to see them behind bars if they did the killing.”

Soon, the family was not even safe in its front yard. Rodriguez said the gang members would drive in front of the house, point a gun at them and tell them to “move”--and then drive away.

The harassment escalated to nightly death threats, and a $3,000 contract was put out on Ralph Rodriguez’s life, according to Santa Ana police reports filed Thursday in Municipal Court.

On Nov. 9, one of the gang members allegedly tried to run down the Rodriguez’s 12-year-old son as he played football in the street, police reports said.

“My son had to jump onto the curb to avoid being hit,” Isabel Rodriguez said. The man reportedly yelled “5th Street” before speeding off.

The next night, at about 11 p.m., Ralph Rodriguez, 32, told police that he was in the living room when he heard the sounds of “breaking glass and objects” hitting his house, police reports stated.

When he went outside to investigate, he found six bottles of beer--two of them shattered--beside his house, reports said. Rodriguez said they appeared to have been thrown from Ramirez’s house, and he told police earlier that evening he had seen Ramirez out front with another youth. Ramirez lives across the street.

At about 11 p.m. on Nov. 11, according to police reports, the father of a local gang member came to the Rodriguez house and told Ralph Rodriguez to step outside “so that he could kill him.”

A firebomb was hurled at the house, but it bounced off a bedroom window and landed in the front yard. It was extinguished without causing serious damage, Isabel Rodriguez said.

On Dec. 21, police reports said, gang members in two cars and a truck drove by the Rodriguez household, shouting death threats and brandishing pistols.

Early that afternoon, a young man identified by police as Martinez drove up as Ralph Rodriguez was standing on his front lawn and pointed a .38-caliber revolver at him, saying, “Ralph, I’m gonna kill you,” police reports said.

Rodriguez said he ran inside as Martinez’s vehicle sped away. Martinez was arrested on suspicion of displaying a firearm later that afternoon by Santa Ana police and held in lieu of $500 bail, the reports said.

About an hour after the arrest, a teen-ager identified by Ralph Rodriguez as Delarosa drove slowly by in a late-model pickup truck and yelled, “I’m going to get you,” the reports said. Following closely behind was a carload of up to seven other young men, who shouted, “We are going to kill you,” the reports said.

Santa Ana police subsequently told the Rodriguez family that police patrols had been increased in their neighborhood. In addition, unmarked cars kept police in regular touch with a gang detail officer.

“It’s the support from all of them that keeps us safe,” Isabel Rodriguez said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Avdeef said the arrests show that Orange County police and prosecutors will not allow the justice system to be corrupted by gang threats. “If you intimidate witnesses, it makes a joke of the whole criminal justice system,” he said.

While the family hopes the arrests will end the harassment, they vow to remain vigilant.

“We are surrounded by 5th Street gang members,” Isabel Rodriguez said. “In the day, we don’t have any problems. At night, when we come in, I always look up and down the street to see if there’s a car there or what. You never know. One day they might just come up behind you and shoot you.”

Staff writer Chris Woodyard contributed to this report.