Thanksgiving Eve Shootings Kill Four : Violence: Nine also wounded in four separate gang-related attacks around Los Angeles County. Bloodshed gives rise to fears of retaliation.

Consuelo Contreras had planned to celebrate Thanksgiving Day entertaining relatives and friends over a Mexican-style holiday dinner with home-made tamales.

Instead, she spent Thursday sobbing on her living room couch over the loss of her 20-year-old son, Efraim, who died the night before in a hail of bullets fired from a passing car near her modest apartment in the Mar Vista Gardens housing project in West Los Angeles.

“It’s Thanksgiving--who am I going to thank?” she repeated over and over to her husband, three daughters and a steady stream of neighbors who dropped by to offer sympathy.

The shooting of Contreras was one of at least four separate gang-related shootings Thanksgiving Eve that left four men dead and nine others wounded in Los Angeles County.

Contreras was killed instantly and six other young male companions were injured in what police officials described as a “gang-motivated ambush” drive-by shooting just before 9 p.m.

“We have no suspects in custody,” said Sgt. Alan Thatcher of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Bureau anti-gang squad. “But we are interviewing witnesses and some of the victims and trying to see what they’ll tell us.”

Most of the other victims were teen-agers and men in their early 20s who were hit in the arms and legs as they caroused on a corner in the 11000 block of Braddock Avenue, police said.

“My mother used to tell my brother, ‘Please don’t go with the gangs,’ ” said Efraim’s sister, Lorena, 17, trying not to cry. “He said, ‘Nothing’s going to happen.’

“Now, she’s crying and saying, ‘Why didn’t he listen to me? Why?’ ”

While the young man’s family grieved, neighbors braced for a round of retaliatory attacks in the low-income community where they say gang battles have claimed the lives of six men and injured many more over the last two years.

“You don’t know when retaliation is going to hit--it’s sort of like an earthquake,” said Marlene McLeggan, 34, who was washing dishes Wednesday night when the sound of gunfire and angry shouts erupted outside her kitchen window. “Around here, we just pray to God and keep on going.”

Meanwhile, Contreras’ friends on the street said the shooting brought an abrupt end to a year of relative calm between two rival gangs in the community.

“It was quiet around here, we didn’t have to pack guns . . .” said a young man who claimed to belong to the same gang as Contreras. “Well, I guess it’s going to start all over again.”

“People make a big noise about Roseanne Barr singing the National Anthem off key; well we’ve got big problems right here that need attention, but nobody cares,” said another man who claimed gang membership. “A police car in the area 24 hours a day would scare a lot of troublemakers away.”

In a separate incident in the Echo Park area, a 17-year-old boy was shot and killed and two companions were wounded when they were sprayed with bullets, apparently fired from a passing car, police officers said.

The three victims were walking home in the 1600 block of North Alvarado Street at about 8:40 p.m. when they were showered with 15 to 20 bullets before the car sped away.

The unidentified 17-year-old was driven to a nearby hospital, where he died. A 17-year-old girl suffered at least one gunshot wound to the leg and a third victim was treated for unspecified injuries. Both were expected to survive.

No suspects were in custody.

In the unincorporated Lennox area, Pedro Perez Delgado, 19, of Inglewood was shot and killed and Felipe DeJesus Ontivero, 27, also of Inglewood, was wounded shortly after 11 p.m. Wednesday by rival gang members near Los Angeles International Airport, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Bill Wehner.

The victims were talking when one of the rival gang members drew a handgun and shot Delgado several times in the upper body and Ontivero once in the right arm in the 10000 block of Inglewood Avenue, Wehner said.

Delgado died at Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center in Hawthorne, where Ontivero was listed in good condition.

In Whittier, a 26-year-old suspected gang member was shot and killed at 10:17 p.m. Wednesday after an argument with rival gang members in the 7700 block of Comstock Avenue.

“He was asked where he was from and he gave the wrong answer,” said Lt. Tom Moreno, who declined to identify the victim pending notification of relatives. “He was shot once in the head.”