4 Teen-Agers Are Arrested in Drive-By Slayings of 2 : Crime: Prosecutors will decide today whether to request that the youths be tried as adults in the Saticoy shootings.

Four teen-agers have been arrested in last weekend’s fatal drive-by shooting of two Saticoy men, which authorities believe was gang-related, Ventura County Sheriff John V. Gillespie said Wednesday.

Shortly after making the arrests, investigators seized a red 1978 Pontiac Firebird and a .22-caliber rifle, which they believe were used in the slayings, Gillespie said.

The sheriff declined to identify the four youths because of their ages, which range from 15 to 17. But he said he wants to see the youth who pulled the trigger tried as an adult on two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in the slayings of Rolando Martinez, 20, and Javier Ramirez, 19.

“I hope that the rest of the criminal justice system will . . . send a very loud message that this kind of psycho-with-a-gun mentality will not be tolerated,” Gillespie said.

Prosecutors said they will decide by noon today whether to request that the suspects be tried as adults, said Kevin J. McGee, acting chief deputy district attorney. The youths, three of whom are from Ventura and one from Oxnard, are being held at Ventura County Juvenile Hall, he said.

All four were arrested between 6 and 10 p.m. Tuesday after an intensive, multi-agency manhunt, said Sheriff’s Lt. Joe Harwell.

Martinez and Ramirez were slain when a 17-year-old began shooting from the rear seat of the Pontiac Firebird into a crowd of people leaving a baptism party in Cabrillo Village just east of Ventura early Sunday, Harwell said.

One bullet struck Martinez in the chest and two hit Ramirez in the upper torso, said Jim Wingate, an investigator for the county coroner’s office.

Bullets also injured Rudy Gutierrez, 19, and Ilmer Maradiaga, 22, both of Saticoy, who were hospitalized at Ventura County Medical Center. They were released Monday and Tuesday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The victims, who were not gang members, were merely in the way, Harwell said.

After the shootings, the car sped away toward the intersection of Saticoy Avenue and Telephone Road, where someone used the same gun to fire several rounds into a graffiti-scarred wall, Harwell said.

He said authorities believe that one of those arrested Tuesday, a 17-year-old member of the El Rio gang, fired at the crowd in retaliation for a scuffle last week between his gang and youths living at Cabrillo Village.

“It’s kind of a continuing friction. It’s like the warring American Indian tribes,” Gillespie said. “They hated each other, and I think the gangs are the same way.

“They don’t like anybody on their turf except their own, and I think it’s a continuing small-time squabble. And that’s tolerable,” Gillespie said. “But when you randomly shoot from 70 yards away and kill people, that’s death-penalty time as far as I’m concerned.”

Within hours of the shooting, the Sheriff’s Department mobilized 21 deputies and enlisted the help of Ventura police to interview witnesses, Gillespie said.

At first, Cabrillo Village residents were fearful of retaliation for talking to police, but eventually they provided information that led to the naming of the suspects by other witnesses, Gillespie said.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested the three Ventura youths, including the 17-year-old, within blocks of their Ventura residences, Harwell said.

Undercover deputies had staked out the neighborhood surrounding the La Colonia residence of the fourth, a 16-year-old, and arrested him as he drove away in the red Firebird, Harwell said.

When detectives searched the 16-year-old Ventura suspect’s residence, they found the unloaded, .22-caliber semiautomatic under his sister’s bed, Harwell said. Authorities believe that the gun was used to kill Ramirez and Martinez.

Gillespie said the youth suspected of doing the shooting had bought the rifle Saturday from an unidentified man on a Ventura beach.

By Wednesday afternoon, evidence technicians wearing surgical gloves were dusting the weather-beaten car for fingerprints and testing its passenger-side window for gunpowder residue.

Nearby, the rifle was in a steel drum containing Krazy Glue. Authorities hope that the congealing glue fumes will reveal fingerprints.

On the street, sheriff’s deputies and Ventura police were continuing to work on defusing gang tension and on discouraging gang members from congregating, said Sgt. Carl Handy, supervisor of the Ventura Police Department’s gang suppression unit.

“You might call us cautiously optimistic,” Handy said.

“I’m glad they’re in custody,” he said of the suspects. “But I’m hopeful the insanity of shooting people randomly doesn’t continue.”