Beach-Goers Flee Gangster Shootout : Ventura: Rivals’ gunfire erupts without warning, panicking sunbathers, but no injuries are reported. Authorities make six arrests.

A shootout between rival Santa Paula gangs touched off panic on a crowded Ventura beach Thursday morning, sending frightened sunbathers ducking for cover.

Police said it was remarkable that no one was injured in the cross-fire at the popular beach off Spinnaker Drive near the Ventura Harbor Village. The hot, sunny morning enticed hundreds of people, mostly parents with their young children, to the beach just south of Ventura Harbor.

“I felt like I was in a war zone,” said Pat Mitchell of North Hollywood, who was visiting the Ventura beach with her two sons and their two young friends.

“Luckily they were digging this big hole and I told the kids to jump in it and put their heads down,” she said. “Then I jumped in and covered their heads up.”

Police swarmed to the area immediately after the shooting and within minutes arrested two Santa Paula gang members as they walked from the public beach across the Santa Clara River to nearby McGrath State Beach, where they had been camping with their families.

A second group of four rival gang members was arrested minutes after the shooting when police spotted their brown Chevrolet Blazer heading east on California 126 toward Santa Paula. Police found a revolver in the vehicle with expended cartridges in the cylinder.

All of the gang members, two of them juveniles and the others 19 or 20 years old, were arrested without incident.

Police said the shooting apparently erupted without warning when two rival Santa Paula gangs spotted each other across the sand shortly before 10:30 a.m. One group was standing near the harbor’s south jetty and the other was in the parking lot.

“It was my impression they just saw each other and started shooting,” said Ventura Sgt. Carl Handy. “If you have two gangs with ongoing feuds, all they have to do is see each other to kill each other.”

Ventura city officials said they were upset but not surprised that shooting had erupted on the beach.

“There are shootings all over the city,” said Deputy Mayor Todd Collart. “We have them in parks, on the east end, on the west end, in mid-town. And now on the beach. It could pop up anywhere.”

Collart said he fears the incident will chill tourism. “It certainly doesn’t add to the attraction of the city,” he said. Ventura’s beaches, particularly those near Ventura Harbor, are promoted as a tourist draw.

Witnesses to Thursday’s incident told police there were no shouts or gang signs exchanged before the rival gangs opened fire with as many as 11 shots.

“I couldn’t believe it. This guy had a gun, and he was shooting out onto the beach,” said Vince Trujillo, 30, of Pismo Beach who had just pulled into the beach lot and was parked a short distance from the gunfire.

He said the young gang member was standing on the sidewalk trying to remove fishing line from his pole. Then suddenly, he put down his pole, pulled out a gun and began firing.

“At first I thought it was a fake gun,” Trujillo said.

The rival group began moving quickly down the beach, distancing itself from the shooter and putting more beach-goers in the cross-fire. Once a few hundred yards away, one gang member on the beach pulled out a gun and returned fire, police and witnesses said.

Meanwhile, the gang members in the parking lot climbed into a truck and drove away, firing several more shots at the beach as they sped down Spinnaker Drive.

Jimmy Mills, 53, said the three gang members hustled past his beach chair before returning fire. Each was wearing baggy pants, white T-shirts and jackets when they jumped over the jetty near his lawn chair and took off down the beach.

When they were about 100 yards away, Mills saw one gang member pull out a gun and fire several shots toward the parking lot.

“When he returned fire, the echo from here was like the guy was standing right next to me,” he said. “That’s when I headed toward the water.”

Like many of the adults crowding the beach Thursday, Mills saw the incident as a sign of increasing violence in society, especially among youths who acquire guns.

“My feeling is that they’re going to have to declare martial law in a few short years and start confiscating guns,” he said.

Many people on the beach said they heard the shots, but at first thought they were firecrackers or a pop gun. Later, when word of the shooting spread and police swarmed the area, parents began packing up belongings and steering children toward their cars.

Marion Levin, the director of a Ventura day camp, was scrambling to line up parents to drive her group of 35 children home after the shooting.

“I just want to get these kids out of here because I don’t know if they’ve apprehended anyone,” Levin said.

“It makes me feel very sad that Ventura has come to the point where you can’t go anywhere and be safe with kids,” she said.

Residents and police said they expected the brazen shooting to prompt public cries for increased police visibility and a crackdown on gang violence.

Randy Gravelin, manager of Andria’s Seafood Restaurant in the Ventura Harbor Village, said police should patrol the area more frequently. “We hardly ever see the police officers out here on patrol,” Gravelin said. “I think a show of force is always needed when you have a big crowd.”

Handy, who supervisors the Ventura Police Department’s anti-gang unit, said he expects a community reaction. “I’m sure by this time tomorrow we’ll be doing a lot of question-and-answer stuff with the community,” Handy said. “This kind of stuff scares the dickens out of people. This isn’t supposed to happen in Ventura.”

Police identified those arrested Thursday as Ramiro Ernesto Montano, 20, Alejandro Garcia, 19, and Fernando Enrique Calderon, 19, and two juveniles, all of Santa Paula. In addition, John Anthony Sosa, 20, of Fresno, was arrested with the group stopped on California 126.

A seventh Santa Paula resident was detained near McGrath State Beach and later released because authorities could not directly link him to the shooting, Handy said.

All of the adults were booked into County Jail on $5,000 bail. The juveniles were taken to juvenile hall.