Boy, 13, Mingling With Members of Gang Shot : Violence: Victim of Pacoima drive-by shooting is in critical condition with a head wound. It is the third incident of its kind this week.

In the county’s third incident of its kind this week, a 13-year-old Pacoima boy described as an innocent victim was critically wounded during a drive-by shooting late Tuesday as he mingled with older youths in a gang.

Eddie Perez, who was listed in critical condition Wednesday at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, had been standing in a driveway with members of a Pacoima street street gang on Tuesday night when a single shot fired from a speeding car struck him in the head. He wasn’t in the gang, members said Wednesday as they gathered again in the 11000 block of Norris Avenue, but he liked to tag along with his 16-year-old brother’s friends.

“We feel guilty, all of us, for even letting him stand right here with us when we know we’ve got problems with other gangs,” said 18-year-old Jose Moreno, whose hands, neck and arms bore the tattooed emblems of his gang.

“He didn’t gangbang. He’s just an innocent little kid,” said 17-year-old Eric Estrada, whose house was the scene of the shooting.

The incident marked the third time this week in which young Los Angeles County teen-agers became victims of suspected gang violence despite their own peripheral relationship to gang activities.

On Monday, 12-year-old Ricardo Escobar of La Puente and 13-year-old Marco Velazquez of City Terrace were fatally shot--Escobar in a drive-by shooting near his family’s apartment and Velazquez in the back as he fled from a sidewalk confrontation.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Wes McBride of the department’s gang unit said it is too early to detect a trend because the numbers of gang-related deaths involving young teens has changed little since last year. According to McBride’s statistics, which exclude the city of Los Angeles, there were three gang-related homicides last year involving youths 13 years old or younger. So far this year, McBride said, there have been four such deaths, including those of Escobar and Velasquez.

But the percentage of all gang-related homicides in the county has doubled in the last decade, from 20% in 1980 to 40% last year, said Billie Weiss, an epidemiologist with the county health department.

Los Angeles police said they do not break down their gang-related statistics by age.

Steve Valdivia, director of the privately run Community Youth Gang Services, called drive-by shootings an “act of self-contempt” by teen-agers who hate themselves and their peers because they feel they have “no future, no control, and they can’t look to adults and the usual institutions for any kind of encouragement and career expectations.”

In Pacoima, Moreno, Estrada and three other friends blamed Tuesday’s shooting on their rival San Fernando gang. But Moreno said he did not know whether the 11:20 p.m. shooting was “a start-off” incident to provoke a war, or “a pay-back” for an earlier instance of violence.

Eddie Perez’s family could not be reached for comment, and officials at San Fernando Junior High School, where Eddie had been enrolled, said they had been asked by relatives not to release information.

Los Angeles Police Lt. Bernard Conine said Eddie and his father, who witnessed the shooting, had not been gang members.

The Vaughn Street gang said they regretted Eddie’s involvement Wednesday but were nonetheless blase.

“It’s an everyday thing, you get used to it,” said Estrada.

“It’s just a chance you got to take,” said another youth in the group.

“We’ll take precautions next time, and tell them to go home,” Moreno said of young children.

“We’ll tell their parents to go rent them a movie or something so they can stay home,” said Jorge Rodriguez, 19, of North Hollywood.

BACKGROUND

Last year, 285 Los Angeles County teen-agers under 18 years old died violent deaths, with 214 of those cases involving guns, according to the coroner’s office. There were 329 gang-related homicides in the city of Los Angeles last year, according to Los Angeles Police Department statistics, and 220 gang-related homicides so far this year. The number of drive-by shootings last year--not all resulting in injury or death--was 1,263, according to the LAPD, or an average of three per day. So far this year, there have been 838 drive-by shootings, police said.