New Fears Arise After Slaying at Park : Oxnard: The killing of a Port Hueneme man in his car ends 6 months of calm in the area, which has a history of gang violence.

A fatal shooting this week has sparked new apprehension among some neighbors of an Oxnard park that attracts both gang members and Little Leaguers.

A man identified Tuesday as 37-year-old Osiel Ponce of Port Hueneme was shot several times and killed Monday while sitting in his car at Durley Park.

Although it was the first slaying at Durley, the park at Hill and G streets has a history of violence and is the center of a gang turf war, neighbors and police say.

The killing ended a six-month period of relative calm, after a shooting in March brought increased police attention, neighbors said. Now they’re worried that violence is back on the upswing.

“It’s like it’s starting up again,” said Sharie Sotelo, 26, as she fed her 5-month-old baby in her apartment’s living room, which looks out onto the block-square park. “It was calming down.”

After past incidents of violence, Sotelo said, she moved her children out of the front bedroom because she was afraid that a bullet would come through the window. Now she sleeps in that room.

Sotelo’s neighbor, Ray Bentley, said he doesn’t let his 6-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter go alone to the park, even though it is directly across the street from his apartment and is often full of youths playing baseball, football and other sports.

Instead, Bentley, 31, makes his children play in the yard of his apartment complex, unless a relative can accompany them to the park.

The Durley Park neighborhood is dangerous, he said, because three gangs are fighting for control of the area.

One gang has claimed the area south of Cedar Court, the park’s southern boundary, Bentley said. Another has staked out the area north of the park along Hill Street and a third controls G Street on the west.

“It’s worse over here than in Colonia,” he said. “Nobody from outside goes in” to the La Colonia district, which is claimed by a single gang, so there is less tension, he said.

Another neighbor, Benny White, defended the park, saying Monday’s shooting could have occurred anywhere in the city.

But Oxnard police spokesman David Keith confirmed that there is a three-way turf battle in the Durley Park area.

Keith said police have no suspects in the killing and haven’t determined whether the shooting was related to gangs, drugs or some other cause. Ponce was shot as he sat in the driver’s seat of his car by a man who had been sitting in the passenger seat. The assailant fled in a white pickup truck, witnesses said.

Ponce’s funeral Mass is scheduled for 8 a.m. Thursday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Oxnard.

Ponce, a fieldworker who had lived in Ventura County for 20 years, is survived by his wife, son and daughter in Port Hueneme; brothers in Oregon and in North Hills in the San Fernando Valley, and his sister and mother in Mexico.

Police wouldn’t disclose whether Ponce had a criminal record, saying the publicity could interfere with their investigation.

The March shooting occurred when a shotgun-toting teen-ager fired a spray of pellets at a group of youths, injuring the hand of a 16-year-old boy, while other youths played baseball nearby.

That incident prompted an outcry by residents and increased attention from city and police officials.

Councilwoman Dorothy Maron kicked off her reelection campaign in the park with a call for the city to help residents to “take back the park” from gang members.

In addition, the council has been discussing for months whether it would be feasible to level the man-made berms in the southwest corner of the park, which are a favorite hangout for gang members trying to avoid police surveillance.

The berms, which are about 10 feet high, cover three concrete storage tanks that are remnants of an old sewage treatment plant. City officials estimate that it would cost $420,000 to $500,000 to level the berms and put in new landscaping.

While all these plans are being discussed and studied, residents are worried.

Maria Reyes, 21, just graduated from UC Santa Barbara and returned to live with her parents in the house where she grew up, directly across the street from the parking lot where Monday’s killing occurred.

She said the park is much more dangerous than when she was growing up, when the worst things that happened were fights between junior high school students.

Despite the episodes of violence at Durley Park, Reyes said, her parents don’t want to move from their home of 15 years.

But “if it continues like this, we might just take our families and leave the area,” she said.