3 Wounded in Drive-By at Venice High : Violence: Police believe the shooting was gang-related. School officials say the campus is safe, but some students and parents aren’t so sure.

Three teen-age students were wounded Friday at Venice High School in a drive-by shooting resulting from the rivalry between two Latino gangs not party to the post-riot gang truce in effect elsewhere.

After bursts of gunfire interrupted the quiet of early morning classes, however, most students resumed activities inside the tightly secured building. A few sobbed or called their parents to be taken home. The school switchboard was flooded with calls and about a dozen parents immediately came to the office to make sure their youngsters had not been hit.

“I just want it to stop,” cried Misty Gapazin, who attends a nearby school but came to Venice with her mother after hearing that her boyfriend, 18-year-old Rene Hernandez, was one of the victims.

“They are going crazy at each other. They don’t care about other people’s lives. It’s not worth it; it’s over stupid stuff.”

She said she did not know if Hernandez is a gang member. But Los Angeles Police Officer Steve Cordova said all three victims sported gang tattoos and other indications of gang membership.

LAPD Lt. George Ibarra said four males in a stolen maroon Honda Civic fired as many as 15 shots at the students on the sidewalk just outside the delivery entrance to the school, on Walgrove Avenue just south of Venice Boulevard. The shooting took place about 8:20 a.m., minutes after the last bell had rung and most students were inside. The suspects flashed weapons and shouted gang names and epithets before opening fire on the three fleeing youths, who tried to reach safety inside the school gates.

The three victims--two Venice High students, ages 15 and 18, and a 17-year-old who attends the nearby Venice Skills Center--were taken to UCLA and Daniel Freeman Marina hospitals, where they were treated for superficial wounds and expected to be released within a day. One had been struck in the back, a second in the left leg and the third in the hip and right arm.

It is the latest incident at Venice, and the closest to the campus, where warfare between gangs has gone on for many years.

Gunshots were fired last week in the faculty parking lot, although no one was injured, and last August a young man, not a student at the school, was brought on campus for medical treatment after being shot across the street.

Fear of gang activity threatened Venice’s traditional Friday night football games last fall, but the school stepped up security procedures and involved more parents. There were no incidents during the season.

Principal Andrea Natker said there has never been an on-campus shooting and there has been only one weapons-related expulsion during the last three school years.

“It’s a safe campus. The problems come in traveling to and from school,” said Herb Graham, director of police and administrative services for the Los Angeles Unified School District. “It’s difficult to predict when such an incident will occur. That’s the damnation. But once on campus we provide a safe environment.”

Natker said Friday’s shooting is another “sign of the times, (stemming from) the frustrations and prevalence of guns.” Venice has locked gates, high security fencing and two full-time security police, plus myriad administrators on alert with two-way radios.

“But you can have all the people and locked gates in the world,” Natker said. “A gun is a difficult thing to stop.”

Natker said school officials are evaluating what more can be done, and are reassessing their procedures.

Graham said that presence of police has been stepped up, including both school district and city officers, both uniformed and in plainclothes.

In the hours after the shooting, most students seemed philosophical, strolling from building to building for classes and taking the assault in stride.

“It’s pretty scary,” said 18-year-old Jennifer Neuhaus. “But at the time it happened, they should have been in class, not out ditching.” Late Friday, Natker said school was operating normally because “most of the kids have a sense that if you are not in a gang, you are safe, that they were not after innocent students.”

Some, however, opted to go home early. Steven Rosselli, 17, was shaken, having been late to school and only yards from the shooting. “I just didn’t want to be here,” he said as his stepfather, Mark Salerno, picked him up. “They (the gunmen) said they’re coming back.”

Concerned parents converged on the school, first to make sure their children were safe and then to discuss what should be done.

“I don’t even want my son to walk to school anymore,” said Diana Lennon, who lives four blocks away.

Salerno, who lives in Westchester, said the shooting may be the final straw for his family. He said he fears for his son’s safety, but also empathizes with youngsters who can see no alternatives to gang activity. He decried recent cuts in funding for education and after-school programs that might diminish the lure of gangs, but said that he is fed up.

“This is getting out of hand. And we’re getting out of here, to someplace like Big Sur.”

Times staff writer John Mitchell contributed to this story.