His 24-year-old son, Francisco, was cleaning out his car in the driveway when he got a phone call. But three weeks ago, the 45-year-old father’s life changed forever. He moved to South Harmon Street eight years ago.
census, have parents born outside the U.S.Īlienation, misunderstanding and fear from within as well as from without contribute to the isolation of some poorer neighborhoods, even as hundreds of thousands of people live, work, dine in the county seat and never have a problem. Almost half the residents, according to the U.S. About the same percentage don’t speak English at home. In Santa Ana, more than three-fourths of the population is Latino. Santa Ana also is something of a cultural island, more so as the demographics of surrounding cities shift, with growing numbers of Asians replacing declining numbers of whites.
Police Chief Carlos Rojas calls it “an almost perfect storm.”
The review also points to a rise in intergang tensions, more young guns wanting to prove themselves and citizens dropping their guard after years of declining crime in an area where an estimated 4,500 gang members live mean peace is hard won and can be fleeting. Interviews with law enforcement, academics, public officials and residents suggest some shared theories: More relaxed laws put more criminals on the streets, while a recession-reduced city budget put higher pressure on a smaller police force. Police call it an anomaly, one they are determined to snuff out.Ī Register examination found no single reason for the bloodshed and no simple solution. Still, five people have been killed, an unknown number injured and an officer wounded. It’s nothing like the 1990s, when there were 78 homicides in a single year. But since the start of the year there has been an average of a shooting a day. Gunshots once were common here, before relative quiet took hold several years ago.
Word is the shooters are from rival gangs and hit up – challenged – one another while riding bicycles. Children on their way home from school stare as Santa Ana police place yellow cones next to shell casings, the aftermath from the latest shootout in a city whose heart has been torn by gunfire in the last two months.īefore low-slung apartment buildings, women hold babies, men talk quietly.
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