Drive-By Gunfire in Stanton Hits Four Youths

Four youths were wounded--one critically--in a drive-by shooting Tuesday night in a residential neighborhood at the intersection of Rose and Central streets.

Neighbors said a small car sped away immediately after the shooting at 9:35 p.m. No one was arrested immediately, and sheriff’s deputies said the youths were taken by ambulance to four nearby hospitals.

“I was in bed. I just heard the shots. Like four or five. That’s all. Bang, bang,” said Toni Cervantes, 50, a home-care nurse who has lived in the neighborhood all her life.

Gaby Cedillo, 18, a resident of Rose Street for 17 years, said her 16-year-old brother, Alex, was hanging out with friends across the street and was one of four young men shot.

Alex was shot in the hip as he walked across the street from a neighbor’s home toward his own, she said. He was taken by ambulance to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana.

Another youth was reported in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head at UCI Medical Center in Orange. The other youths were rushed to local hospitals.

At Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, a 17-year-old youth was treated for a minor gunshot wound to the chest and released, a hospital official said.

Cervantes and other neighbors said there is frequent rivalry between young men from Stanton and others from Anaheim, but she had no information on Tuesday’s shooting.

She said, however, that there had been another drive-by shooting at Rose and Central streets last year, in which a youth was “shot down.” It was not clear if he was killed or injured.

Gaby Cedillo said her brother was “was just a drive-by. He was shot on the side, on the hip. He was crawling inside the house, trying to knock on the door to tell us he was shot, but he was too excited to tell us what happened.”

She said that there are shots in the neighborhood regularly but that “usually they don’t hit nobody. People come here, act crazy, they think they are smart.”

Gaby said her brother was not in a gang but was “a nice kid who just doesn’t do very well in school.” Alex is in ninth grade at Gilbert Continuation School, she said.

Gaby said she did not see the shooting. She was in a bedroom when it occurred, she said, but she was told that the driver who sped away was in “a small car.”

Added her brother, Jose, 15, “I came out of the bedroom and I just saw (Alex) lying on the floor” of their home at 10892 Rose.

The youth’s mother, Lucila Cedillo, 43, said she was called home from work after her son was shot.

Few details were available on the shooting, Sheriff’s Department officials said late Friday.

One did confirm that four young men were shot and seriously wounded. “No one’s been killed,” he said.

Asked if this was gang activity, the spokesman said, “That has not been determined yet.” Investigators were still combing the area late Tuesday, he said.