2 Killed as Neighbor Fires on Party-Goers : Oxnard: A man shoots through his drapes at a group fighting outside his window. He says he feared for his family’s safety.

An Oxnard man fatally shot two men early Wednesday when he fired blindly through the drapes of his bedroom window at neighboring party-goers who broke the window while fighting on his front lawn, police said.

The shooting accounted for the 21st and 22nd homicides so far this year in Ventura County, pushing the death toll above 1990’s year-end total of 20 homicides, said Jim Wingate, a coroner’s investigator.

Police said Raymond Thomas, 42, unleashed five shots from a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle through his window at a crowd of drunken party-goers in front of his apartment just after midnight.

Thomas had shouted a warning after someone broke his window, then fired through the closed drapes because he feared for the safety of his wife and daughter, Oxnard Police Sgt. Denny Phillips said.

One bullet struck Ruben Lara, 19, of Santa Maria in the chest, and another hit Matthew Garcia, 19, of Oxnard in the head, Phillips said. Friends rushed Lara to St. John’s Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 2:28 a.m.

Phillips said Garcia was taken by ambulance to that hospital and transferred later to Ventura County Medical Center. He died there at 11 a.m. without regaining consciousness, a spokeswoman said.

Phillips said a third bullet grazed the head of Larry Crist, 21, of El Rio, who was treated at St. John’s and released.

Assistant Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin J. McGee said prosecutors have not decided whether they will file charges against Thomas in the shootings. He has not been taken into custody.

Thomas could not be reached for comment at his apartment Wednesday. Neighbors said he is new to the neighborhood and they know little about him.

But neighbors said the front apartments in the building just south of Thomas’ apartment in the 2000 block of Ventura Road were the site of frequent loud weekend parties.

“There’s always noise, always people jumping up and down off the patios,” said one neighbor, who asked not to be identified. “You hear music, you hear screaming, you hear yelling. . . . They just kept you awake all the time.”

The rental manager for both buildings, who also asked not to be named, said he has received numerous complaints about loud parties in the apartments but has let police handle them. One tenant has asked to move out since the shooting, the manager said.

Gregory Martinez said the party he hosted in honor of his 20th birthday got out of hand late Tuesday night.

“A few of my friends came over, and a few of the people got into an argument,” he said. “They were a little intoxicated, and there was a little bit of anger.”

When Garcia and another man Martinez knew only as Mike began fighting, Martinez said his roommate ordered them and the other party-goers to leave.

The fight continued outside, where Stacy Albertson, Martinez’s downstairs neighbor, said she heard the two men scuffling on the landing.

“Someone told me that it was over a girl, but it wasn’t,” she said. “I think it was just that they were drunk. All I could hear was girls going, ‘Knock it off!’ ”

Martinez said the two stopped fighting but that Mike began fighting again moments later with a friend of Garcia’s. That fight drifted into the bushes in front of Thomas’ apartment.

One of them had the other in a headlock, trying to ram his head into Thomas’ tall, Gothic-style window when the shooting began, Martinez said.

Thomas told police that he heard people scuffling and hitting the wall outside his bedroom window, Phillips said. When a pane of the window broke, Thomas grabbed his .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle out of a closet, Phillips said.

“Thomas’ perspective was that somebody was coming into his apartment,” Phillips said. “His statements were that he yelled out, ‘Get away from the door,’ or ‘Don’t come in the window, I’ve got a gun.’ ”

Then, without being able to see clearly outside through the white drapes, Thomas fired five shots through them and the window, hitting the three men, Phillips said.

Martinez recalled, “It just sounded like firecrackers. Then I remember Larry (Crist) saying, ‘I’m hit, I’m hit,’ and people were checking themselves to see if they’d been hit.

“Then we could see Matt was down, and Ruben was down. We thought one of us had done the shooting. We thought one of us shot one of our friends.”

Thomas called police immediately after the shooting and cooperated with their investigation, Phillips said.

“Matt was a cool guy. He’d just graduated from Santa Clara High School two days ago. . . . I’ve known Matt since we were little kids,” Martinez said. “Ruben was here just for the weekend.”

Lara had taken time off from community college studies in Santa Maria to visit Mexico and stopped in his hometown of Oxnard on his way south to visit friends for a few days, said his friend, Joe Dorack. “It was a real shock to me and to everyone else as well,” Dorack said. “Ruben was well liked by all his friends at school.”

Martinez said the party was planned for a few close friends. When more people showed up than he expected, he said, “It just got out of hand. They were fighting over something stupid, and the neighbor just panicked.”