Mother Seeks Answers to Slaying : Violence: Her 2-year-old boy was killed in a drive-by shooting. The Santa Ana woman and her neighbors meet in church to ‘begin a healing process.’

The mother of a 2-year-old boy who was killed last week in a drive-by shooting said at a church meeting Tuesday night that she is “heartbroken” but has prayed for the killer of her son.

“I have no desire to hate you or condemn you,” said Eva Martinez. “But I’m trying to understand this act.”

Martinez and her husband, Alfonso, buried their son, Esteban Zavala Martinez, Tuesday morning. The boy was shot in the head while he was being carried in his father’s arms on Thursday. Police said the gunman might have mistaken the boy’s father for someone else.

The Santa Ana couple and 75 others who live in the neighborhood surrounding St. Joseph’s Catholic Church were invited to the meeting by the Rev. Stan Bosch, who said he wants to “begin a healing process.”

The loss of Martinez was the latest tragedy in the residential and industrial area around St. Joseph’s.

In another shooting in the neighborhood, Alex Cordova, 16, of Santa Ana, was shot and killed on New Year’s Eve in the 600 block of North Garfield Street.

Since Cordova’s death, Bosch has held weekly meetings with groups of gang members in an attempt to promote peace on the streets. In fact, Bosch was at a gang meeting last Thursday night when he heard an ambulance wail past the church. Immediately afterward, Bosch heard that the victim was young Martinez.

Cordova was killed when a car drove up to him while he was standing in the street. After words were exchanged with someone inside the vehicle, Cordova was shot in the chest, fatally wounding him. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.

In the weeks following Cordova’s death, another youth, Jose Lopez, a teen-ager from Santa Ana, was fatally wounded.

Among the parishioners at the meeting Tuesday night were the Cordova and Martinez families. Bosch said that they have asked for peace in their neighborhood in order to put a stop to these “crazy deaths.”

“The mothers ask that we put down the weapons and that there be no revenge,” Bosch said.

Eva Martinez recalled that she saw Lopez’s mother at the same mortuary when she went to make funeral arrangements for her son, Esteban.

“The mother of Jose (Lopez) was there picking out flowers. Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad. My son died accidentally. But Lopez’s mother was inside the mortuary screaming, asking God for an answer to why someone had gunned down her son. She had no hope,” Martinez said.

For Esteban’s brother, 5-year-old Panchito Martinez, it has been especially difficult. “It seems like God made the world clean and it was magic,” Martinez told Bosch, his parents and others at the meeting. “Now it’s very dirty.”