2 Men Found Shot to Death in Oxnard Park

Two men found shot in the head early Monday on the edge of a small park became Ventura County’s first reported homicide victims of 1996, in an attack neighbors fear may be gang-related.

Police found the bodies of Manuel Encarnacion, 28, and Jesus Silva Onofre, 22, both of Oxnard, in Durley Park shortly after 3:50 a.m. Each had received a single gunshot wound to the head. They declared dead at the scene.

Police said Monday they knew no motive for the killings but were investigating them as homicides.

One woman who lives on G Street, across from the site where the bodies were found, said she heard shots fired moments after she heard two men arguing about how to shoot something.

“He said, ‘I told you, that’s not the way you do it--give it to me and I’ll show you how to do it,’ ” the woman, who did not want to give her name, said through an interpreter.

The woman said she did not go to the window to see what was occurring because she thought the men were setting off fireworks to celebrate the new year. She said she did not hear a car driving away afterward and did not hear any fleeing footsteps.

These were not the first slayings in the small park at Hill and G streets. In October 1992, the body of a 37-year-old field worker was found in his car at the park. He had been shot several times. Police suspected he had been involved in a failed drug sale.

And last spring, seven people were arrested after a drive-by shooting at the park that sent one Oxnard resident to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg.

Neighbors said the park is situated in the center of a turf struggle between rival gangs, one based in apartment buildings south of the park and another in the blocks to the north. The dispute rarely escalates beyond the level of shouting and taunting, G Street resident Tony Silerio said.

Late Monday morning, the park seemed as calm as any on a warm holiday. Teenagers played basketball on the courts while a man practiced his golf swing nearby.

Some neighborhood residents walked past the slaying site, marked only by two pools of dried blood in the grass alongside a baseball diamond.

Several people said the neighborhood has become less violent in recent years, a trend they attribute in part to creation of a Neighborhood Watch program about two years ago.

“The way it used to be here, god, it was bad,” said one man with family members in the neighborhood. He also declined to give his name.

“You used to hear shots almost every night,” he said. “It’s calmed down a lot from what it once was.”

Elsewhere in the county, the New Year’s weekend passed quietly. Although police agencies responded to several traffic accidents, none resulted in severe injuries.

County Jail personnel reported about 180 arrests for the weekend, covering such offenses as drunk and disorderly conduct and spousal battery. Between 6 p.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Monday, 45 people were arrested for driving under the influence, and two of those had been involved in accidents.

Ventura police made just three driving under the influence arrests during the weekend, Sgt. Tom Taylor said. He said perhaps the hefty price of a DUI fine--about $2,400--may be persuading more New Year’s Eve revelers to take a cab.

“I think people are realizing that it hits the pocketbook,” he said.

Taylor said he was pleasantly surprised by the slow weekend and attributed the low number of arrests to several cold nights followed by strong winds Sunday.

“Between the wind and the cold, everyone stayed in,” he said. “That’s the only reason I can think of.”