Old Patterns of Violence in New Year

An Oxnard man was shot outside a liquor store. Two men were stabbed at a party in Santa Paula. And police received scores of calls about fights and holiday revelers firing guns in the air.

With the exception of an armed robbery attempt in Ojai that produced the county’s first fatal shooting of 1991, the overall level of mayhem was fairly typical for the start of the New Year in Ventura County, officials said.

“The criminal activity was about the same as last year. The types of activity varied. This year, we had a lot more disturbances, of people talking too loudly,” Santa Paula Police Sgt. Mark Trimble said.

While the armed robbery attempt in Ojai was the most violent incident of the day, the county’s first shooting injury of the year was recorded hours earlier in Oxnard’s La Colonia district.

At 1 a.m., according to police, Rigoberto Lopez, 25, a tattoo artist known in the neighborhood as “Cyclone,” was shot at close range in an Oxnard liquor store parking lot at Magnolia Avenue and Oxnard Boulevard.

Lopez was hit with a .45-caliber bullet in the right hip, and the bullet exited from his left buttocks, police investigators said.

After undergoing successful surgery, Lopez remained in stable condition Tuesday at St. John’s Regional Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The suspect in the shooting has not been identified.

On New Year’s Day, shortly after midnight, Lopez walked into the liquor store with four women friends and began arguing with four men, police said.

The discussion continued outside the store, and Lopez appeared to have prompted the shooting after his attacker had gotten into his car and was preparing to leave, Detective Rafael Nieves said.

As Lopez walked by the suspect’s car, he appeared to shove the car door into his attacker’s foot, the detective said. The suspect responded by shooting Lopez, Nieves said.

“What can I say, it’s New Year’s Eve,” Nieves said with a shrug after interviewing Lopez in the hospital’s intensive care unit. “People sometimes have too much to drink and lose their temper quicker.”

Little more than an hour after the shooting in Oxnard, two Santa Paula men were stabbed during a party.

Jim Singale, 25, and Greg Presser, 29, were taken to Santa Paula Memorial Hospital, where they were both listed in good condition Tuesday in the intensive care unit, a hospital spokeswoman said. Both men suffered multiple stab wounds, the spokeswoman said.

But in traditionally the busiest night of the year, activity was fairly light, Oxnard Police Lt. Gordon Hubbard said. Oxnard police had 164 calls for service from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., of which 44 were for fights, 9 for loud parties and 29 for shots fired, Hubbard said. There were eight arrests for drunk driving out of a total of 23 arrests, he added.

Officials at other police departments in the county reported few arrests for drunk driving, with none in Simi Valley and Ventura, and two in Santa Paula. The California Highway Patrol reported 18 arrests for drunk driving from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and four minor traffic accidents.

“It was an incredibly quiet night,” one Simi Valley police officer said.

Meanwhile, some hospital delivery rooms were anything but quiet as eight babies were born during the morning of the first day of the year.

Maria and Javier Amezcua of Moorpark ushered in the year with the birth of a daughter, who was the first baby born in the county. Maria Amezcua gave birth to a girl at 2:55 a.m. at Simi Valley Adventist Hospital.