Teen Driver Shot in Head in Santa Ana : Violence: It is the third shooting in as many days in the city. The youth staggers out of his car and pleads for help.

A teen-age motorist dripping with blood staggered out of his car and cried for help Tuesday night after he was shot in the head by an unknown gunman in the city’s third shooting in as many days, police said.

The victim, who was identified only as a 17-year-old Santa Ana resident, was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange with gunshot wounds to his head and left arm after the 7:26 p.m. shooting, police said. His condition was not immediately available, but his wounds did not appear to be life-threatening, police said.

The victim, who was driving north on Pacific Avenue, had stopped at a stop sign at 5th Street when a vehicle heading west on 5th turned onto Pacific Avenue in front of him, police said.

“As the suspect vehicle passed, several shots were fired at the victim’s vehicle,” said Santa Ana police Sgt. Dan Carr. “The victim was injured in the head and left arm. The victim exited the vehicle and staggered several yards before collapsing.”

Blood was smeared on the victim’s white Chevrolet Camaro and a mailbox where he fell to the ground, witnesses said.

Carr said the assailants fled south on Pacific Avenue. He added that investigators had “found nothing that indicates (the shooting was) gang-related.”

Sally Amezola, 23, who lives nearby in the 1500 block of 5th Street, said she ran outside after hearing the gunfire and saw the victim screaming for help and bleeding profusely about his head.

She said she told the wounded teen-ager to sit down as she ran back into her house and grabbed a towel to staunch the blood.

“I asked him who had shot him and he said he didn’t know. He stopped at the stop sign and somebody just came up and shot him.”

Another witness who declined to be identified said he “heard some shots and looked down the street and saw a guy get out of the car yelling, ‘Help, help!’ And then he fell.”

He said the boy “is young. That’s all I know, and one of his eyes was bloody. He was holding on to a mailbox.”

Tuesday night’s shooting was Santa Ana’s third in three days.

Sunday night, a police officer was slightly injured by broken window glass when his patrol car was struck by bullets from a passing car. The car was later found abandoned.

The officer was treated at a local hospital and later released. No arrests have been made in that shooting.

On Monday, police officers shot a suspect who allegedly grabbed for a pistol hidden in his waistband during a foot chase.

The man was hit in the abdomen and underwent surgery at UCI Medical Center. The incident was the city’s first shooting by an officer this year, authorities said.