Stabbing Incident Departs From Pattern : Violence: Experts say the attack by alleged gang members on a group of San Clemente High students signals a new type of assault that doesn’t involve a rival gang.

Police say members of the San Clemente Varrio Chico gang usually spend time worrying about the whereabouts of the San Juan Boys, with whom they have battled for at least a decade.

The bloody history between the two South County gangs lists among its casualties 4-year-old Prisca Lorena Caudillo, who was wounded by passing gunfire on the second-floor balcony of a neighbor’s apartment in 1989, and Roman C. Calvillo, 26, who was shot to death in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant in San Clemente in 1990.

The shooting of Prisca, who recovered from wounds to the face and upper body, was by members of the San Juan Boys, police said at the time. The death of Calvillo, a reputed member of the San Clemente Varrio Chico gang, in November, 1990, was the first gang-related homicide in San Clemente’s history.

But in turning their violence on a group of San Clemente High School students--one of whom was pierced in the head with the metal rod of a paint roller--the San Clemente Varrio Chico appeared to be signaling a new type of assault that doesn’t involve a rival gang, authorities said Monday.

“This is an unusual circumstance,” Sheriff’s Lt. Tom Davis said. “I can’t recall this type of situation where gang members are attacking non-gang members.”

The San Clemente gang has about 145 members or affiliates, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Russ Moore, a gang liaison officer. At any one time, about 40 members are active. Affiliates do not claim membership but hang around with gang members.

Some members of gangs are employed as construction laborers and work as carpenters, framers, roofers or dry wallers.

In Mexico, many of the youths were members of gangs, and once in Orange County, have banded together with other Spanish-speakers, gang experts say. To become members, some hopefuls must steal beer or fight their way out of a circle of several gang members as a way of proving themselves, they say.

Two of those arrested in the attack on Steve Woods, 17, are construction workers and one is a painter, according to Max Madrid, director of gang prevention for a nonprofit center that works with the cities of San Clemente, Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano.

Often, members of the rival South County gangs don’t use guns when they fight, Moore said. It is more usual for them to pick up and use whatever happens to be in their cars when trouble arises, such as baseball bats, tire irons and screwdrivers, or other “weapons of opportunity,” he said.

“There are guns in the gangs,” Moore said, “but by and large, when something happens, they’ve used whatever has been handy.”

By all accounts, the turning point for gang violence in South County came in 1989.

On Christmas Eve of that year, Prisca Caudillo was playing on the porch of a neighbor’s second-floor apartment in San Clemente when she was wounded in a drive-by shooting. The shooting was the first of its kind in South County and marked an escalation in local gang problems.

One adult and three juveniles, alleged members of the San Juan Boys, were arrested and convicted in the case. The adult and his friends had made three attempts to shoot rival gang members in San Clemente, according to court testimony. In their second attempt, they hit the little girl.

San Clemente’s first gang-related homicide came less than a year later, in November, 1990, when Calvillo was gunned down in a restaurant parking lot.

And now? “For San Clemente, this is a terrible thing because this is San Clemente,” Moore said. “You would not expect something like this to happen. But our problem is nothing compared to Santa Ana or Los Angeles’ problems, and that’s where we want to keep it.”