Santa Ana Child Shot in Drive-By Attack Dies : Crime: A gunman wounded the 2-year-old as he was being carried by his father Thursday evening.

A 2-year-old Santa Ana boy died Friday evening, a day after he was shot in the head while resting in his father’s arms.

Esteban Zavala Martinez was being carried Thursday night in the 600 block of North Garfield Street as his parents walked home from a haircut appointment on East 4th Street. Without warning, a gunman leaned from a crowded moving car and fired once from a small-caliber handgun, striking Martinez in the head, police said.

Eva Martinez said she screamed at the sight of her injured child and then heard one of the car’s passengers yell at her to “Shut up! Shut up!” as the white, older model Monte Carlo continued south on Garfield Street and roared from sight.

The toddler’s 29-year-old father, Alfonso Martinez, was not injured, said Lt. Robert Helton. Alfonso Martinez placed the child’s body on the ground and tried to comfort him as Eva Martinez ran to their East Civic Center Drive apartment to call police.

Police said they had few answers about the 9 p.m. shooting, which they said appeared unprovoked.

“What we think is that (Alfonso Martinez) was mistaken for somebody else,” said Police Chief Paul M. Walters.

“I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that those people come to justice,” Walters said.

“This to me is an example of total disrespect for human life. Anyone that commits these acts of violence ought to get the death penalty. . . . It just makes you sick.”

The assailants, described as seven young-looking men, remained at large Friday.

In a city where police investigate hundreds of shootings each year, the Martinez case was a rarity, Helton said.

“We’ve had (innocent) people standing on the street get shot,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ve had someone as young as this,” Helton said.

Mayor Daniel H. Young, who called the shooting a “horrible tragedy,” said such drive-by shootings are “one of the most difficult crimes for the city to deal with because it’s hard to get witnesses.”

To help end the carnage, “parents are ultimately going to have to take charge of their kids,” Young said.

Countywide, deadly shootings involving toddlers are rare. County coroner’s records show that 13 children under 12 years of age died due to gunshot wounds between 1987 and 1991.

Esteban Martinez died at 5:10 p.m. at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana.

Earlier Friday, the Martinezes had sought to comfort each other and brace for the worst. “It was an act of craziness,” said Alfonso Martinez, who works in a Newport Beach restaurant. “I don’t know who they were.”

Between crying spells, Eva Martinez spoke in a whisper and clutched the red baseball cap that fell from her son’s head when he was shot. “I don’t even want to wash it,” she said, standing next to Father Stan Bosch, a pastor at St. Joseph’s Church, where the family has attended Mass for about two years.

Eva Martinez said she harbored no hatred toward her son’s attackers and did not want revenge. “What I want is that no one remain angry,” Eva Martinez said. “I want people to know I am not angry” at the assailants. “Don’t be angry at them.”

Christina Alcazar, a family friend, shook her head in sorrow. Esteban, a plump child with an abundance of hair, was “so innocent, an innocent bystander,” she said. Alcazar described the boy as energetic and playful.

“It’s really hard. There’s no change” away from increasing violence, Alcazar said.

Alcazar said Esteban’s older brother and sister, Alfonso, 6, and Rosie, 3, “don’t believe” what happened. “They’re taking it real hard because they were always together.”

Bosch said the Martinez shooting was the latest tragedy in the residential and light-industrial area that surrounds his church. On New Year’s Eve, 16-year-old Alex Cordova of Santa Ana was shot and killed on North Garfield Street, police said.

Bosch said that since that killing the church on Minter Street has conducted weekly meetings between groups of gang members in an effort to promote peace on the streets. Bosch was at a gang meeting Thursday night when he heard an ambulance wail past the church followed by shouts about a shooting. Soon afterward he heard the victim was Esteban Martinez.

Bosch went to the hospital and administered the blessing of the sick Thursday night, he said. Early Friday he and another priest, Christopher Smith, baptized the child as he lay in a hospital bed.

St. Joseph’s Church will accept donations to help pay for Esteban Martinez’s hospital costs, Bosch said. Donations can be sent to St. Joseph’s Church, 727 Minter St., Santa Ana, Calif. 92701.