Gang-Related Drive-By Shootings Leave 3 Wounded

Two drive-by shootings in different cities, both apparent gang confrontations, left three people wounded late Sunday and early Monday, police said.

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In another gang-related drive-by shooting in Santa Ana on Sunday that left two young men dead, no arrests were reported Monday.

In one shooting Sunday in Garden Grove, a 17-year-old boy was shot in the eye while riding in a car stopped at a traffic light on Brookhurst Street near Trask Avenue. The teen-ager, who was not identified because he is a juvenile, was taken to an area hospital for treatment, where he was reported in stable condition, according to Garden Grove Lt. John Woods.

Residents in the area of Brookhurst Street and Trask Avenue called police at 10:45 p.m. to report shots fired in the vicinity. The victim was found at a convenience store at the intersection of Brookhurst and Stanford Avenue.

Police said the victim was a passenger in a car traveling north on Brookhurst when a verbal confrontation, apparently gang-related, developed with people in another car heading in the same direction. At a traffic signal, a passenger in the second vehicle, a gray or gold, late-model 1980s Honda hatchback, fired at the victim.

About 3 a.m. Monday, Anaheim police officers were called to the emergency room of a hospital where two men were being treated for gunshot wounds, according to Sgt. Thomas E. Lahmon.

Juan Alvarado, 19, of La Habra was being treated for a gunshot wound in the back, which hospital officials said may leave him partially paralyzed. He was reported in serious condition Monday by hospital officials.

Carlos Alvarado, 18, of Ontario sustained a minor wound to the knee. He was treated and released.

Police said that the two victims, who were with three others, were traveling north on the Orange Freeway approaching the Ball Road exit when their car came under fire from a second vehicle in another apparent gang confrontation. Friends of the victims drove them to the hospital.

There were no arrests Monday in a Santa Ana shooting early Sunday in which two teen-agers were fatally wounded in their car.

Police identified the victims as 19-year-old Emigdio Lechuga and 17-year-old Daniel Flores, both of Garden Grove.

The victims were found in and near their car in the 2000 block of Baker Street at 1:45 a.m. The car was left idling in the middle of the street, its headlights and stereo on and the passenger-side door open.

Police said the three shootings are not connected.