28 Guns Seized in Home Raids : Sweep: Thirteen suspected members of a Filipino gang are arrested as 100 deputies hit seven South County communities, seeking to preempt confrontation.

About 100 sheriff’s deputies swept through mostly upscale neighborhoods in seven communities during a pre-dawn raid Thursday, arresting 13 suspected gang members and confiscating 28 guns believed to have been stolen.

Before noon, deputies who started the operation in Mission Viejo had rounded up the alleged gang members--most of them juveniles--and seized handguns, shotguns and high-powered assault rifles.

Altogether, deputies went to 22 residences in Irvine, Tustin, Santa Ana, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Laguna Niguel and Lake Forest.

County gang-suppression investigators sought to recover 37 guns recently stolen from two Laguna Niguel homes by members of a Filipino gang, according to Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Stan Jacquot.

Law enforcement officials, he said, feared that the youthful gang members were arming themselves for a confrontation with a rival Filipino gang in South County.

“To us, it looked like these guys were going out on a shopping spree,” said Jacquot. “We felt there was a real high potential for gang violence here that we wanted to cut off.”

Suspects were arrested on a variety of counts, from suspicion of felony weapons possession to misdemeanor probation violations.

Besides firearms, deputies took away several trash bags full of purported gang possessions, including clothes bearing red and green gang colors and a letter describing a drive-by shooting in Irvine.

Handcuffed on the couch of his hillside residence in Rancho Santa Margarita, a 16-year-old male asked deputies, “Why are you picking on me? I didn’t do nothin’. I’m not having a real good day.”

He said he once belonged to a Filipino gang, but no longer.

“Nah, I’m not part of that anymore,” he said. “I don’t have any guns here. I never used or touched a gun.”

Jacquot largely blames parents for their children’s gang affiliations.

“Lack of parental control is a big problem,” said Jacquot. “Yet, in South County, more than any other place in the county, parents seem to be in denial.”

Gang activity in South County has climbed steadily since 1992, he said.

In the past two months alone:

* Sheriff’s officials say they have arrested about 30 suspected gang members carrying firearms in South County.

* There have been two drive-by shooting incidents, one of which left two juveniles seriously wounded.

* A male juvenile male from Santa Ana was sent to Lake Forest to escape a gang element in his hometown. Acting on a tip from Santa Ana police, sheriff’s deputies last month found an AK-47 semiautomatic assault rifle under the teen-ager’s mattress.

For South County cities, which began spending money on special anti-gang programs about three years ago, the raid sent a message.

“People didn’t really want to think about the fact that gangs come into South County,” said Laguna Niguel Mayor Mark Goodman. “This type of action keeps the pressure on these types of people and shows that we are going to stamp out this kind of activity.”

Jacquot said: “The word about this operation is already being spread in the schools. The kids know about it. So this is already a success.”