2 More Die in Weeklong Slaying Spree : Crime: Homicides in Santa Ana are believed to be gang-related. The number of such killings this year in the county ‘is clearly a record,’ a law enforcement official says.

The bodies of two more homicide victims were discovered late Wednesday and early Thursday, raising the number of slayings in a weeklong shooting spree across the county to nine. Both shootings were believed to be gang-related, police said.

After a deadly weekend in which six were killed and eight were injured, the shootings resumed at midweek. In addition to the two Santa Ana deaths, one man was killed and two others were injured Wednesday night in Fountain Valley in an apparent gang attack near Little Saigon.

The county has now registered 156 homicides this year, more than 50 of them gang-related. That figure is the highest total in Orange County in the five years that statistics on gang-related homicides have been kept.

“This is clearly a record and a cause for concern,” said Douglas H. Woodsmall, supervisor of the Orange County district attorney’s gang unit. “We’re keeping busy.”

Shortly before midnight Wednesday, police responded to a report of a drive-by shooting in which Tony Sanchez, 28, of Santa Ana died of wounds to his upper body. Sanchez was sitting in his car in the 1600 block of West Highland Street when the shooting occurred.

Santa Ana’s gang unit investigated the shooting, although Sanchez is not believed to be a gang member. Police have no suspects in the slaying.

On Thursday morning, less than an hour after Sanchez was shot, Santa Ana police were in the 1800 block of West 2nd Street to investigate the death of Juan Luis Velasco, 17, of Santa Ana, who had been shot once in the chest. Velasco, who police say was a documented gang member, was rushed to UCI Medical Center in Orange but died upon arrival. Two people were seen running from the shooting, witnesses said.

Santa Ana Police Sgt. Dick Faust said the Sanchez and Velasco shootings do not appear to be related.

Sanchez leaves behind a wife, Irene, and two children, 8-year-old Sandy and 4-year-old Loran, according to his brother, Jose.

“I loved my brother. He always took care of me,” said Jose Sanchez, 25, a computer salesman in Santa Ana. “He was not in a gang. He would never (join) one. He would tell me all the time: ‘Don’t hang around with gang members.’ ”

Sanchez graduated from Valley High School in Santa Ana and wanted to become an architect, his brother said. He worked in construction until a power saw cut through part of his leg last year.

“It’s just been hard to get a job after that,” Jose Sanchez said.

The family is trying to raise money for a funeral, he said.

The other Santa Ana shooting victim, Juan Velasco, was discovered after his father received an anonymous, early morning call Thursday telling him that his son had been shot.

The father, also named Juan Velasco, drove his car to the site in the 1800 block of West 2nd Street where his son lay in the street.

“He was breathing, but when the paramedics put him in the ambulance, I knew he was gone,” Velasco said. “I’ve seen death before.”

Velasco, who runs a restaurant in Long Beach, said he had lately become concerned about his son’s safety. “He wanted to live his life so fast,” he said.

His son and the neighborhood boys formed a gang, he said. When one of the gang members was shot dead earlier this year, Velasco said he told his son: “You have to wake up. I don’t want this to happen to you.”

Velasco’s son was in the 11th grade at Horizon High School, an independent study program in Santa Ana run by the Orange County Department of Education, his father said.

In Fountain Valley, police identified Tu Anh Nguyen, 19, of Garden Grove, as the victim of a drive-by shooting Thursday night. Two others were injured and remained in critical condition Thursday at separate hospitals after the attack. No arrests have been made, Capt. Bill De Nisi said.

The three youths had been customers inside the Cafe Gia Hoi in a strip mall on Edinger Avenue near Magnolia Street earlier in the evening. When they walked outside, they were hit by gunfire from a passing car, police said.

One person was hit in the neck and foot, and fell in front of the cafe as patrons and employees ran outside after hearing gunshots.

Their attackers, still in the car, stalked the two others, who were on foot, and shot them about a block away in a residential neighborhood, De Nisi said. One of the two was Nguyen, who died about four hours later of a single wound to his head at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. The other victim was shot in the chest.

Neither of the survivors’ names was released for safety reasons, De Nisi said. They are in their early 20s, he said.

“I don’t have (it) documented . . . that all three belonged to gangs,” De Nisi said. “But because this looked to be a drive-by, we are investigating it as gang-related.”

Times staff writer Mark Platte contributed to this report.