Gunfire Kills 1, Injures 2 at Project Beset by Violence : Crime: Suspect is in custody after the latest in a string of drug-related shootings at a Long Beach residential community.

A barrage of gunfire early Sunday left one resident dead and two others seriously injured at the Carmelitos Housing Project, the latest in a series of shootings that has plagued the Long Beach project, authorities said.

Residents said the shooting broke out in a two-story unit that had for months spurred complaints from neighbors. They described the apartment as a flophouse for drug users.

Officers responding to the shooting sped over the project’s footpaths and lawns in patrol cars and captured Montie Harvey, 29, a suspect who fled the shooting scene on foot, Long Beach police said.

Harvey, a Carmelitos resident, was booked on one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder, said Lt. Philip King. He was being held at Long Beach City Jail.

Mario Garcia, 20, who was struck by a bullet in the back of the head, was pronounced dead Sunday morning at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. His girlfriend, Ana Lechuga, also 20, was in critical condition at the hospital. She had undergone surgery for three gunshot wounds in the head and neck, King said.

The third victim, whom police did not identify, was in stable condition at Memorial. She had been struck by bullets in the arm and lower body, the lieutenant said.

With its sprawling grass fields and graffiti-free buildings, the 50-year-old Carmelitos project once was considered a model for county public housing. But in recent years it has become a backdrop for drug-related violence, residents said.

In the last two weeks, several neighbors in the 900 block of Via Carmelitos had told management of noisy, late-night gatherings at the apartment where Sunday’s shooting took place, said Linda Lechuga, the sister of one of the victims.

Lechuga said her sister, Ana, and her boyfriend lived in the apartment.

Lechuga said her sister had been fending off visitors who demanded to use the apartment as a place to use drugs.

“Ana and Mario were not innocent,” Lechuga said. “They brought a lot of the trouble upon themselves. But they were trying to get away from the drugs. They were determined to keep the house clean. They had been told by the management that, if complaints kept coming, they would be evicted.”

Often the complaints went to the father of the two women, Richard Lechuga, who said he went to Ana’s apartment in the middle of the night, several times a week, to expel unwanted visitors.

“I knew about the drugs, and I knew someone was going to get hurt,” the elder Lechuga said. “I just didn’t know when it was going to happen.”

Brenda Johnson, a friend of Ana’s who lives in a nearby building, remembered several late-night break-ins at the apartment.

“Even when (the couple) stayed away from their apartment, some of the unwanted folks would bust the windows and go in,” Johnson said. “Once they got invited in once, they were in there for life.”

The largest and oldest of the county’s public housing complexes, Carmelitos houses about 2,000 low-income residents in 713 units.