1 Killed, 7 Hurt After Party Turns Violent

One man was killed and seven others were wounded early New Year’s Day when a party got out of hand and sporadic violence continued for nearly 2 1/2 hours, police said.

The dead man was identified as Jack Cisneros, 33, a landscape maintenance worker, who investigators said became caught in the cross-fire of what could have been a gang drive-by shooting as he was standing in a driveway talking to neighbors.

Cisneros, a member of a family that has lived in the city’s La Jolla neighborhood for 75 years, had no gang affiliation and was “truly a victim,” Placentia police said.

His wife was still in a hospital recovering from delivering twin boys on Saturday when she was told of her husband’s death. The couple has four children.

Family members said Cisneros had been baby-sitting and had walked outside to see what was happening in the Orange County neighborhood.

His shooting capped a night of violence that erupted at 12:23 a.m. with a fight at a back-yard party. Police said they arrived to find four adults and two youths scattered “up and down the street” with stab wounds, none of them fatal.

Sgt. Russ Rice said officers called on police departments in Anaheim and Fullerton for help in bringing the melee under control.

Those injured in the knife fight were identified as Placentia residents Paul Moctezuma, 26, Alex Chinchilla, 20, and Armando Moreno, 18; Ruben Castillon, 19, of Anaheim; and two 16-year-old boys.

Officers left the neighborhood but were called back at 1:49 a.m. when, on the same street, a 17-year-old boy was found with a bullet wound in the lower right leg. Police were on the scene when they heard the shotgun blast that killed Cisneros two blocks away.

Witnesses said a small, dark car stopped across the street from a group of about five people chatting in a driveway. The occupants shouted out what one witnesses said was a gang slogan, then fired a blast that struck Cisneros in the upper chest.

The injured were taken to area hospitals, where they were reported in fair condition.

Rice said no arrests have been made in any of the three incidents.

“We are just trying to sort all of this out,” the sergeant said.