Pushers Filter Back to O.C. Street After Deadly Battle

Since he moved to West Walnut Street about a month ago, Celestino Morales Davila had one confrontation after another with the drug dealers who swarm over the neighborhood every day.

The cocaine peddlers would sit on Morales’ car, and he would tell them to get off. The dealers would hurl taunts and insults at him, as they have done for years at other residents of the neighborhood.

On Saturday afternoon, the war of words turned deadly. Morales, a 22-year-old immigrant from Mexico City, was shot and critically wounded after helping residents fight off a group of the young dealers, who had threatened Morales’ boss and next-door neighbor, Salvador Villegas, according to Villegas and others.

Although Morales and the other residents initially chased the drug dealers away, they had only scant moments to savor their victory. Six of the dealers returned--with pistol, rifle and shotguns--and marched towards Villegas’ modest stucco home in the 1400 block of West Walnut.

Hurrying the children inside, Villegas sought shelter, as did his next-door neighbor and some other men who had helped him in the fight. Morales didn’t make it; he was shot in the head. Friends who visited him Sunday at UCI Medical Center in Orange said Morales was on life support machines.

Another man, Sabino Mena Moreno, 19, was also wounded by gunfire and was treated and released at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo.

As police searched for the assailants, the neighborhood Sunday began to refill with drug dealers, some sneering at Villegas as he stood outside his home and shook his head over the problem.

“I believe the city has money to pay one man to come in and see how many people are selling drugs here and then to do something about it,” said Villegas, 45, a Mexican immigrant who owns a boat repair business in Stanton where Morales works.

But city officials, who have conducted dozens of drug sweeps through the neighborhood over the past three years, said their hands are tied. Mayor Daniel H. Young said that while police have arrested scores of suspected dealers in the neighborhood--which he described as Santa Ana’s most notorious drug market--jail capacity is so low in Orange County that they are quickly turned loose.

“They are out dealing drugs the next day,” Young said. “The county puts them right back on the street because there is no room in the Orange County Jail to put them into. We need more jail room in this county.”

Santa Ana Police Sgt. Jack Rife, whose patrol district includes West Walnut Street, said another problem for law enforcement is that the dealers make sure to carry small enough quantities of narcotics so that they can only be charged with misdemeanor possession. Rife said they keep larger quantities stashed away.

Rife added that residents of the neighborhood, which has a large number of illegal Latino immigrants, have been historically reticent to cooperate with police in cracking down on the dealers. This, he said, is because they fear both deportation and reprisals from the dealers.

On West Walnut Street on Sunday, such fears were clearly evident as several residents interviewed declined to have photographs taken and, in some cases, names used. Villegas, who is known as a neighborhood watchdog for his propensity to notify police about the dealers, expressed concern that he or his family might suffer.

“I tell you right now, I don’t know when I will be killed,” Villegas said as groups of young men huddled on the street, smoking marijuana and offering cocaine and heroin to passers-by. “They use the drugs in front of my children. That is why I call the police.”

Saturday’s violent flare-up came after months of confrontations between dealers and residents. Neighbors have repeatedly complained to the dealers about throwing bottles and garbage into their yards and sitting on their cars and trucks. The dealers--most of whom police say live outside the neighborhood and ride bicycles into it--have responded with laughter and insults, the residents said.

Morales clashed with the dealers almost immediately after moving into the neighborhood a month ago. He repeatedly asked the drug dealers to quit sitting on his white Pontiac Ventura, Villegas’ brother, Santiago Villegas, said.

“He asked them nicely the first time,” said Santiago Villegas, who shared his home with Morales. “But they insulted him.”

Morales, who immigrated to Orange County three years ago, was regarded in the neighborhood as a quiet, hard-working man who sent money home each month to his parents in Mexico City. Morales was home relaxing Saturday afternoon when the trouble began next door between Salvador Villegas and one of the dealers.

Police said they were still sorting out the events that led to the shooting, but Salvador and Santiago Villegas gave the following account:

Salvador Villegas was in his front yard, calling his brother’s dog after it ran outside. A dealer lounging with his bicycle in front of his house yelled back at him, “Are you calling me?” Villegas replied that he was not, but the dealer persisted. Finally, Villegas said, he lost his temper and asked, “Is your name dog?”

The dealer dropped his bicycle and rushed to Villegas’ fence gate, saying he was tired of Villegas’ calling the police on him and his friends. Villegas said he offered to fight the dealer, but the younger man ran off to get help.

When the drug dealer returned with about nine friends, Villegas enlisted the aid of his brother, Morales and a few other neighborhood men. After a brief fistfight the dealers ran away but promised to return, Villegas said.

Santiago Villegas’ 12-year-old daughter called the police as the two brothers rounded up their other children and hustled them inside. Everyone but Morales was indoors when six of the drug dealers appeared from around a corner, carrying a rifle and two shotguns.

“Someone was yelling, ‘The guys are coming! The guys are coming!’ ” Villegas said. “I heard six or seven shots then. And I heard my brother saying that, ‘Someone is killing Celestino.’ ”

Morales was walking back to his house when one of the gunmen fired a shot from a small-caliber pistol, striking him in the head, neighbors said.

Morales was armed with a small machete but, according to friends, had no chance to use it. Mena, whose role in the shooting police were still trying to ascertain Sunday, suffered minor wounds from shotgun pellets.

By the time police arrived, the assailants had already fled.

Shortly after noon Sunday, several young men and women described by residents as longtime drug dealers began filtering back onto West Walnut Street. Two young men on bicycles stopped a car and asked, “ Coca? (cocaine)” When told that the motorist was a reporter seeking information about the neighborhood’s drug problem, the men looked away and began to ride off.

“There’s no problem here, man,” one of the men muttered.

Times staff writer Lily Eng contributed to this article.