2 Teens Killed by Gunshots in Parking Lot

Robertina de Leon had always feared that her teenage boy, a gang member whose life was punctuated by violence, would meet an early death.

On Sunday afternoon, her worst fear came true.

Her son, Miguel Gomez, 16, was one of two teens gunned down in the parking lot of a Stanton strip mall in what investigators said was a gang-related shooting.

Gomez and an 18-year-old companion were shot by a gunman who witnesses said fired multiple shots. The identity of the second victim was not available.

“I used to tell him that he needed to straighten out his life because I was afraid that one day I would find him dead on the street,” de Leon said. “But the advice that everybody gave him would go in one ear and out the other. He never listened.”

Gomez, according to relatives and family friends, had been warned repeatedly that rival gang members were out to get him. According to his sister, Sara Gomez, their father saw him at a swap meet in Anaheim earlier in the day and urged him to go home because it was not safe for him be out on the streets.

“My father scolded him and told him to come home. He knew, we all knew that it was dangerous for Miguel to be out,” said Sara Gomez. “He had been threatened before by gang members. Our house was shot up Saturday night.”

Instead of going home, Miguel Gomez accompanied a group of friends to another swap meet in Stanton before heading home.

Orange County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Ron Wilkerson said the fatal shooting occurred about 3 p.m. when the victims and two companions stopped at a shopping center at the northeast corner of Magnolia and Cerritos avenues, a block from Miguel Gomez’s home.

Gomez and the other victim stayed inside a blue Pinto station wagon while their two friends went inside a market.

According to sheriff’s investigators and witnesses, a white, lowered Honda Accord with a black stripe pulled into the parking lot moments later. The driver stepped out with a gun in hand, walked to the Pinto and fired several rounds, leaving three bullet holes in a rear passenger window.

The man and his companion then accelerated out of the parking lot and headed east on Cerritos Avenue, witnesses said. The two young men who went into the market were not hurt. Sheriff’s investigators were interviewing one as a potential witness and were looking for the other.

Gomez died at the scene, and the second shooting victim was taken by ambulance to Columbia West Anaheim Medical Center, where he died, Wilkerson said.

Authorities blocked off the crime scene with yellow tape as several hundred spectators gathered to watch. Gomez’s body lay between two cars, covered by a yellow tarpaulin, while investigators gathered evidence.

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One block away, an anguished de Leon talked about her son’s life.

The 40-year-old woman, who works two part-time jobs to support her family, was red-eyed from crying. She struggled to understand why homicide detectives did not allow her daughter to touch her brother’s body.

Sara Gomez, 20, was summoned to the scene by friends who rushed to the family’s town house on Cerritos Avenue to tell her that Miguel Gomez had been shot.

“All of us tried so hard to steer him away from trouble. It was very hard for me because I was always at work. I worried so much about him,” de Leon said. “I cursed the gang he was involved with. I was reminded of that every day whenever I saw his tattoos.”

She said that her son had been arrested four times for graffiti vandalism and gang activities and had been released on probation Dec. 12. Officials would not release any details of his past.

De Leon said she learned about the shots fired at her house Saturday night when she arrived home from work early Sunday. Sheriff’s Lt. Fred Lisanti said that a 911 call was made about shots being fired in the area and that a deputy was dispatched, but that the deputy found nothing unusual.

Santiago Escobar, 21, a friend of the family, said he and Miguel Gomez had been standing in front of the house, which faces Cerritos Avenue, at 7 p.m. Saturday when one of three youths standing across the street fired three shots.

One bullet hit the house and two others hit a parked car, Escobar said. A bullet hole was visible above the front window of the house. Escobar and Sara Gomez said the shooting was preceded by the loud explosion of a firecracker that was thrown in the entryway leading to the house.

Escobar, a San Bernardino resident, said he and Miguel Gomez went outside to investigate the explosion and were standing in front of the house when the shots were fired at them. Escobar, who said he is a former gang member, had been trying to convince Miguel Gomez to leave the gang lifestyle.

“I’ve known Miguel for four years. I used to be a gang member and know what that lifestyle is like,” Escobar said. “I would tell him that it would be better if he settled down. I was worried about him and where he was headed. You know, some people glorify gang life and violence. Miguel wasn’t a bad kid. He was just influenced by the wrong people. Some of us who cared for him were trying to turn him around.”

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The neighborhood, a mixture of well-kept apartment buildings and homes with tidy yards, has been the scene of several drive-by shootings.

A couple who wanted to be identified only as Frank and Paula for fear of retaliation said they have lived in a townhome three doors down from de Leon for a year. On Sunday, the couple, who have 13- and 16-year-old sons, said they are moving at the end of the month.

“My boys are in the house all day. We don’t let them go out because we’re afraid they’re going to get shot,” Paula said. “We heard the shots [Saturday] night, when they shot up [de Leon’s] house.”

“It’s over for us. We’re going to move at the end of the month,” Frank said. “We’re sending our sons to my mother-in-law’s house tomorrow morning. This stuff has to stop. It’s crazy. Talk to the kids in the neighborhood. Everyone seems to know who killed those two kids.”

Several neighborhood youths talked openly about all the threats and warnings that Miguel Gomez had received from rival gang members.

“They told him they were going to kill him. They stopped him and told him. That’s why he had a gun and knife,” said Lorena Salazar, 14, a friend.

Investigators said they did not find any weapons on the victims or in their vehicle.

Israel Collado, 16, said he was with Gomez one day in November when a car with rival gang members pulled up in a shopping center parking lot.

“They warned him they were going to kill him. It scared me because I was afraid the gangbangers would think that I was a gang member too,” Collado said. “Miguel never let that stop him. He went wherever he pleased.”

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Dexter Filkins.