VENTURA : 3 Shot Over Ouster of Gang Members

Members of a Ventura-area gang, angered about being thrown out of a rock band’s practice session early Sunday, returned to spray gunfire into a crowd and struck three people, Ventura police and witnesses said.

Noe A. Perez, 30, of Ventura was in fair condition at Ventura County Medical Center following surgery for gunshots wounds to both legs, a hospital spokeswoman said. Michael J. Hart, 20, and Michael J. Wade, 26, whose addresses were not disclosed, also were in fair condition with leg wounds.

The shootings occurred about 12:30 a.m. Sunday in a commercial compound on Channel Drive that houses two auto body shops, a motorcycle repair shop and a building where a band called the Sugar Daddies was practicing, a Ventura police spokeswoman said.

According to witnesses, a dispute broke out when Perez, owner of one of the body shops, reprimanded two teen-agers watching the band for urinating on a BMW he was preparing to paint. Perez and another employee escorted the two boys and a girl who was with them from the fenced-in grounds.

“They were screaming, ‘You don’t know who you’re messin’ with. We’re members of the Warlords. Nobody does us like this,’ ” said one witness, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. “They made all kinds of threats that they were going to kill us.”

The trio returned in a pickup truck about 30 minutes later and parked outside the front gate as Perez and his employees were closing shop and the band was packing up, the witness said.

Through the gate, from a distance of about 20 yards, they fired repeatedly into a group of about five people standing outside Perez’s shop. Witnesses said they were apparently aiming for Perez, but also struck Hart and Wade and blew out the windows of a car and a truck.

About a dozen other people still milling about after the band’s session were sent scrambling by the gunfire. There was no exit from the compound other than the front gate, one witness said.

The assailants, who stopped firing when the three victims fell to the pavement, hopped in the pickup and sped away. Ventura detectives questioned band members and the other witnesses about the identities of the suspects, who remained at large Sunday.