Santa Ana Hit by Third Night of Gang Violence : Crime: A bullet hits an 8-year-old boy in the back and grazes a sleeping woman in the next room.

Punctuating what has already become Orange County’s worst year of gang violence, gunfire ripped through Santa Ana for the third consecutive night Sunday, striking an 8-year-old boy in the back and grazing a woman as she slept in the next room, authorities said.

Carlos Alvarez was in serious condition Monday at UCI Medical Center in Orange. Relatives said a single bullet, apparently fired from a passing car, sliced through a wall and through the couch where he had sat watching television at about 10:45 p.m. The projectile tore into the boy’s upper back, exited his stomach, then passed through another wall before grazing 30-year-old Ofelia Rojas, as she lay in bed. Rojas, who suffered a deep bruise on her right shoulder, was treated at the scene but not hospitalized.

Separate gang-related attacks on Friday and shortly after midnight Saturday had already left two teen-agers dead and another wounded. Police Lt. David Salazar, who heads Santa Ana’s gang detail, acknowledged Monday that the weekend was one of the bloodiest in city history.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Conley, who until recently led the county’s gang prosecution unit, said the slayings apparently also set a new record for violence. Conley said the number of gang homicides so far this year--the specific figure was unavailable--has apparently already surpassed the 16 gang-related killings last year that established the record. At least eight slayings have occurred in Santa Ana so far.

“It’s a scary thing for the community,” Conley said. “Gang members don’t only shoot gang members. Now innocent people, old and young, are getting caught in the cross-fire.”

Santa Ana community leaders, meanwhile, were bracing for an escalation of the violence as summer approaches.

“The weather’s getting warmer,” Councilman John Acosta said. “The kids will be out of school, they’ll be looking for some excitement, and I’m sad to say, I think this is just the beginning.”

In response to the weekend shootings, Acosta said he plans to call for the creation of a city youth commission that he believes would bring together gang members and other youths to try to find solutions to the unrest.

Police Lt. Salazar said that while two of the three weekend shootings occurred only blocks apart, investigators don’t believe that they are connected.

“We are still processing (the crime scenes) and looking for hard evidence,” Salazar said. “I cannot say that we’re hot on a trail or arrests are imminent.”

Sunday’s shooting unfolded as 8-year-old Carlos Alvarez sat watching the detective show “Booker” in the living room of his house in the 2700 block of West Lingan Lane. The boy’s aunt, Ana Maria Alvarez, said she remembers seeing a car drive slowly up the street’s cul-de-sac and then stop for a moment. The car sped away as gunshots rang out from what police believe was a semiautomatic weapon.

The aunt said Carlos yelled for everyone to take cover, then collapsed on the floor, bleeding from wounds to his back and abdomen.

“He was crying,” the aunt said. “I took a towel and put it on his wounds. He was bleeding a lot.”

Antonio Torres, a relative who also lives in the house, said the same bullet passed through a wall and grazed Rojas’ right shoulder before dropping on the floor beside her bed.

“I was sleeping when I felt the impact of the bullet,” Rojas recounted in an interview. “If my head had been moved over another inch, I would have been dead.”

Also seated in the living room were the aunt, her 4-year-old daughter, another aunt to the boy, his grandmother and a 1-year-old cousin. The other 10 people living in the house were asleep in bedrooms.

Police said the attack marked the fifth time in 13 months that the house has been rocked by violence, apparently because at least one resident--now in jail--has gang affiliations.

The boy’s mother, Reina Alvarez, reacted with grief and anger after visiting her son in the hospital.

“They don’t seem to value a human life,” Reina Alvarez said of the unseen attackers. “They have no feelings, these people. Surely they have families too. But they don’t care about who they hurt. They don’t care that they hit an innocent child.

“I don’t know why they act this way, what their motivation is. They are human beings too. Surely they have brothers and fathers who could feel the same things we are feeling. But they don’t seem to care.”

The attack came several hours after 15-year-old Cesar Salgado was killed by suspected gang members as he and a companion walked on the sidewalk in the 100 block of Santa Ana’s South Hickory Street. Salgado, who was shot three times in his side, was pronounced dead at UCI Medical Center. His companion, Javier Torres, 18, shot once in the back, was in stable condition at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana.

Torres and Salgado had been attending a birthday party in the 600 block of East Walnut Street, police said, and were taking a stroll.

The night before, 17-year-old Roger Ochoa died after being shot four times in the back by suspected gang members at another birthday party in the 1200 block of East 3rd Street. Three people were briefly taken into custody in connection with that shooting, but all have since been released, police said.

So far this year, Santa Ana has recorded eight gang-related slayings, contrasted to to 11 for all of 1989.

“We do have a serious problem that the entire community has to take very seriously,” Salazar said. “Before, (we) used to have a lot less violence. Gangs were pretty much territorial. Now violence seems the fad thing to do.”

Salazar said police investigators have accumulated a list of about 6,000 gang members who belong to about 60 gangs based in Santa Ana, more than in any other Orange County city.

Salazar declined to identify the gangs involved in the weekend attacks.

Court records indicate, however, that Sunday night’s shooting may have stemmed from a gang rivalry. A 15-year-old cousin of Carlos Alvarez is awaiting trial for the Jan. 20 murder of Javier Ponce Avila, a 22-year-old reputed gang member, according to court records.

About two months ago, police searched the Alvarez residence and seized a small cache of weapons, according to search warrants filed in court records. Among about two dozen items seized from the house were a Universal .30-caliber carbine semiautomatic rifle and one box of .30-caliber carbine rounds; a butterfly knife; 12-gauge shotgun shells; two rifle cases and two pistol holders; some drug paraphernalia, and various items imprinted with gang slogans, according to the records.

But members of the Alvarez family denied that anyone living in the house has gang ties. Ana Maria Alvarez said that during the recent search police found only a rifle that she had purchased after the attacks began last year.

Times staff writers Catherine Gewertz, Eric Lichtblau and Maria Newman contributed to this report.

First shooting: 10:30 p.m. Friday: Roger Ochoa, 17, gets into a fight with suspected gang members at a birthday party in the 1200 block of East 3rd St. The gang members shoot Ochoa four times in the back, killing him. Second shooting: 12:50 a.m. Sunday: Cesar Salgado, 15, and Javier Torres, are shot as they walk along the 100 block of South Hickory St. Salgado, hit three times, dies. Torres is hospitalized with a back wound. Bullet Trajectory of Third Shooting: At 10: 45 p.m. Sunday: Carlos Alvarez, 8, and Ofelia Rojas, 30, are struck by the same bullet after gunmen fire into their home in the 2700 block of W. Lingan. Alvarez, struck in the upper back, is seriously injured and hospitalized. Rojas, a relative, is only grazed by the bullet. A. Bullets are fired from a passing car. One enters the five-bedroom house where Carlos Alvarez is watching television as Ofelia Rojas sleeps in an adjoining bedroom. B. Bullet passes through wall into back of couch where Alvarez is sitting. Bullet strikes Alvarez is sitting. Bullet strikes Alvarez in upper right back, then exits through his abdomen. C. Bullet passes through wall of bedroom where Rojas is sleeping, grazes her right shoulder and falls on the floor.

Source: Family members at the scene