Attack Was 5th on Household in Santa Ana

Eight-year-old Carlos Alvarez lay in a narrow hospital bed Monday, alongside other children in the pediatric intensive care unit at UCI Medical Center. He had IV needles in both arms and bandages over his chest and stomach. His hands were tied down so he wouldn’t move and possibly injure himself.

He slept soundly, only a few hours after doctors performed surgery to determine if a bullet from a drive-by shooting Sunday night had damaged his lungs and stomach.

Reina Alvarez of Santa Ana, mother of the boy they call Carlitos, said that when he came out of surgery she almost broke down at the sight of her son.

“ Mijito (my little son), I told him, I am here. You are not alone,” she said, her eyes growing moist again as she recalled the scene. “I told him all the things a mother can say. The nurse told me that even though he could not respond, he understood me anyway.”

The boy’s injuries are the last straw for the Alvarez family, who have been victims of violence, apparently gang-related, five times during the past 13 months. Each time, said Reina Alvarez, police had told them there was little that could be done except for the family to move.

The night had been a long one for Alvarez, who only seven days before had given birth through Cesarean section to her fourth child.

Sunday night, she had been lying in her bed at the sprawling house where she, her husband and four children live with other relatives.

Carlos, her oldest child, was watching television with his grandmother and others in the living room. Then, the calm of the night was shattered when a bullet pierced the walls of the house. In seconds, those in the living room were on the floor.

Reina and the others who had been in the other parts of the house ran into the living room and saw Carlos on the floor.

Paramedics came within about half an hour, family members said, and began working on the child. Alvarez herself began hemorrhaging and her relatives would not allow her to accompany her son to UCI Medical Center.

But after a sleepless night, she went to the hospital at 7 a.m. Doctors operated on Carlos, she said, to examine whether the bullet had done any damage to his lungs, his stomach or any other organs.

“They said he will be fine,” she said. “But he won’t be fine. He was already traumatized, and I’m afraid he will be even worse now.”

Carlos had been troubled by the four other violent incidents directed at the family home since March of last year.

In the first incident, Reina’s brother, Carlos, was shot in the arm outside the house. In April, 1989, Reina’s nephew was shot in the chest. Later that year, someone hurled a homemade bomb into a sleeping girl’s bedroom at the house. The bomb did not explode, but sparked a fire. Then, on Dec. 23, shots were fired into the house, smashing several windows but not hitting anyone.

Young Carlos had been frightened by the incidents.

“He is afraid to go into some of the rooms by himself,” his mother said. “He won’t go to the bathroom alone. He sleeps in the same room as my mother, and if she is not ready to go to bed, he will not go in there alone either.”

The house is owned by Reina’s brother Carlos and his wife, Ana Maria, who have lived in Santa Ana 11 years. Ana Maria said her husband is in jail right now, accused of selling drugs, although she contends that it was a case of mistaken identity.

Family members say they have never seen the faces of those who have shot at them or committed other acts of violence against them.

Antonio Torres, 29, a resident of the house and friend of Reina Alvarez, said the house is apparently being singled out because members of the Middleside gang “hang out” both in front and behind the residence at night.

Torres said his 15-year-old nephew is also a member of the gang, but is no longer living at home because he was taken to Orange County Juvenile Hall several weeks ago on suspicion of a gang-related homicide. The case against the youth is pending. Police said the youth is charged in connection with the death of a rival Lopers gang member.

The injured boy has only been in this country two years, emigrating from Mexico City with his grandparents to join his parents and other family members. They live together to save money, Reina said. Now, the family will have to separate, she said, and it will probably mean leaving Santa Ana.

“No matter where you go in this city, there are gangs,” Reina said.