Shots From Autos Kill 2 Men, Injure 1 : Violence: County weekend also includes shooting after fight at party and stabbing after street encounter. Santa Ana homicide toll reaches record 69 for year.

Orange County suffered another violent weekend, including drive-by attacks in Santa Ana and Anaheim that left two men dead and a third in critical condition, a shooting following a fight at a party and a stabbing after an unexplained street encounter.

Targets of the attacks, several of which are being investigated as possibly gang-related, included children and women.

In Santa Ana, two men were shot and killed Sunday in separate incidents bringing that city’s record total of homicides to 69 so far this year. Officers said both killings may be gang-related.

One of the fatal shootings happened at 2:10 p.m., when a 21-year-old man was hit once in the back as he drove his car near the intersection of McFadden Avenue and Sullivan Street.

The victim, Eduardo Gonzalez of Santa Ana, drove into the parking lot of a market after being shot and crashed into several parked cars, Santa Ana Police Sgt. George Kopitch said.

“We don’t know where the shot came from, we have no suspects and no witnesses,” Kopitch said.

Gonzalez was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he died a short time later.

In the second fatal incident, the driver of a car was shot and killed just after midnight Saturdayby gunmen in another car who fired at him more than 20 times, police reported.

The victim, Alex Gutierrez, 26, of Santa Ana, was pronounced dead at a south Santa Ana residence where an unidentified car passenger drove him after the shooting.

In the 300 block of South Garnsey, about two dozen of Gutierrez’s family members and friends gathered Sunday to remember the unemployed machinist.

“Everybody liked him,” said his brother, Joe Gutierrez, 33, of Westminster, as music played from a car parked outside the family home. “He was nice guy,” often collecting money for the family of friends who died, Gutierrez said.

A former newspaper carrier and a Santa Ana High School graduate, he loved cars and had not been involved with gangs, although he may have “hung around with some bad friends,” according to his brother.

Sgt. Dick Faust said Gutierrez was driving west in the 900 block of West Edinger Avenue at 12:05 a.m. Sunday when another car, also westbound, drove alongside. “In excess of 20 shots were fired by the suspects in the other car,” Faust said.

Gutierrez was struck numerous times, Faust said, but the unidentified passenger in the car escaped injury. Faust said the incident is being investigated by the police gang unit.

About an hour later on Sunday, police in Anaheim were searching for gunmen who fired on a car that carried two small children, then later shot a pedestrian in the head.

The pedestrian, identified as Alfredo Becerra, 23, of Anaheim, was in critical condition at UC Medical Center, officers reported. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds, including the head wound, as he stood in the 600 block of West Vermont Avenue, near the Santa Ana Freeway, at 1:20 a.m. Sunday, officers said.

The same gunmen also are believed to have fired a fusillade of bullets at a car shortly before Becerra was attacked. Police said the car-shooting incident occurred in the 500 block of West Hampshire Avenue. The five occupants in the car--two small children, two women and one man--escaped without injury, officers said. They were not identified.

No description of the suspects was immediately available. Police said the two shootings are being investigated by the police gang detail.

Also in Santa Ana, a Garden Grove man was shot in the shoulder when he accidentally attended the wrong party, police reported Sunday.

The victim, Hoa Tran, 32, was taken to a local hospital, and police described the gunshot wound as “not life-threatening.”

Sgt. Faust said Tran and some friends were driving in the 1100 block of West Third Street at 9 p.m. Saturday, looking for a party to which they had been invited. Faust said Tran heard music coming from one home, got out of the car, and walked to the front yard of the residence.

“He realized it was not the party he was looking for when males produced a gun and tried to rob him,” Faust said. Tran fled, but he was shot once in the shoulder, Faust said. Tran’s friends drove him to the hospital for treatment, and police are searching for the gunmen, Faust added.

In Huntington Beach, a fleeing suspect was caught and arrested after a sidewalk stabbing late Saturday night in the heart of Huntington Beach’s renovated downtown area, police said.

The suspect allegedly stabbed a pedestrian in the back, then escaped in a car, officers said.

The victim, Steven J. Demarr of Huntington Beach, was taken to UCI Medical Center and is in stable condition, Police Sgt. J.B. Hume said. Hume said Demarr was walking in the 200 block of Main Street about 11:45 p.m. Saturday when he was stabbed. Hume said police have “no information on what provoked the stabbing.”

The suspect, identified as Terry R. Peacock, 18, of Garden Grove, was captured by Fountain Valley police shortly after the incident when they stopped the alleged getaway car and found Peacock hiding in the car trunk. Peacock was arrested and taken to Huntington Beach Jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.

Also on Saturday, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department conducted a gang sweep in San Clemente which netted 18 arrests, including four on felony charges.

Not even the animal kingdom was completely safe over the weekend.

Police had to shoot a wayward cow early Sunday after it strayed onto the San Diego Freeway near Sand Canyon Road, halting freeway traffic about half an hour.

Sgt. Steve Olson said the California Highway Patrol had to close the northbound lanes of the freeway from about 1:50 to 2:20 a.m. as officers made futile attempts to catch the animal. Finally police shot the cow, and its carcass was hauled off by Caltrans workers, Olson said.

Times staff writer Greg Hernandez contributed to this story.