Teen Stabbed Through Head by Metal Rod

A local high school student was in critical condition Saturday night after surgeons removed a six-inch metal rod that was rammed through his head after a dispute with a group of suspected gang members at a parking lot at Calafia Beach County Park, authorities said.

“This is a tragedy, it really is,” said Lt. Tom Davis, who investigated the incident for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. “In 18 1/2 years of police work, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Fanning out through the town over 17 hours following the Friday night incident, sheriff’s deputies arrested nine people--four adults and five juveniles--and charged them with attempted murder in connection with the attack.

The arrested adults were identified as Juan Alcocer, 20, Pascual Guerrero, 19, Balfred Brito, 19, and Arturo Villalobos, 20, all of San Clemente. Davis described the other arrestees, whom he declined to identify because of their ages, as two 16-year-olds and three 17-year-olds, also from San Clemente. Police said all nine are known gang members.

“We didn’t spare any manpower on this,” Davis said. “We sent everyone out until we had every last one of them in custody.”

Law enforcement and hospital officials declined to identify the injured youngster because of his age, describing him only as a 17-year-old San Clemente boy.

According to Davis, the altercation began about 10 p.m. Friday when 11 local teen-agers drove to the beach in four cars to “hang out and relax” following a football game at San Clemente High School. At one point, he said, one of them got into an argument with a member of another group at the beach, and the first group decided to leave.

As they were driving out of the parking lot, however, the second group began pelting their cars with rocks and bottles, breaking several windows and causing some dents.

A hospital spokesman who interviewed witnesses said that the victim--one of three boys and two girls riding in one of the cars--was stabbed with the steel rod as he stuck his head slightly out a passenger window to see what was happening.

With the rod protruding from each side of his head just above the temple, the unconscious youngster was taken by friends to Samaritan Medical Center in San Clemente before being transferred to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center. He spent spent several hours undergoing emergency surgery there, and two surgeons were able to remove the rod.

“Right now it’s a matter of survival,” the spokesman said, adding that the boy had not yet regained consciousness. “This is a major brain injury. (The rod) got a into lot of vital areas.”

The hospital official said the rod appeared to have come from a paint roller, entering above the right temple and exiting the other side of his head.

Family members and friends--who gathered at the hospital all day to show their support--were described as shocked and angry. “It seems that he is a very popular high school senior,” the spokesman said. “It’s such an unbelievable injury; it’s horrendous for the staff, and it seems so pointless.”

While members of the victim’s group were predominantly white and the second group was largely Latino, police said they do not believe the attack was racially motivated.

Only in recent months has this small beach town begun to experience the echoes of gang violence that have become routine in cities to the north. But police said the weekend attack was particularly troublesome because--unlike past incidents of violence in the city--the gang members appear to have attacked a group that did not have any gang ties.

“It’s not known as a gang area,” Lt. Davis said. “We do have a small gang problem, but usually it will be one gang against another and this appears to be a gang against a group of kids.”

Twenty-four hours after the attack, two sheriff’s deputies in patrol cars remained on patrol at the beach to guard against any further problems.

During the next few days, Davis said, representatives of the Sheriff’s Department plan to visit the local high school to provide any necessary counseling. “My concerns are for the victim, the parents and the kids who were out there,” Davis said, “but I don’t know what kind of effect this may have on the community or the high school. There may be kids who are friends of the victim and will need separate counseling.”

Davis said he plans to work closely with San Clemente leaders and educators in the next few days to quickly mend community wounds in order to forestall the escalation of violence and avoid any potential for retaliation by other gangs in the area.

“We don’t want this to escalate into a full-scale panic in the community,” Davis said. “This is an isolated incident, the offenders have all been arrested and we don’t want to make it a bigger tragedy than it already is.”

Times staff writer David Reyes contributed to this report.