Shooting victim released from hospital

Deepa Bharath

One of two victims shot in an alley on the north side of town last

week has been released from the hospital, police said on Monday.

The released victim, identified only as a “female juvenile,” and

another man were shot by unidentified gunmen near the 3000 block of

Coolidge Avenue on Wednesday night.

The incident seemed to have been the result of an argument that

escalated into a fight, police said. Several rounds were fired in the

alley.

No other witnesses have come forward in the case, Costa Mesa

Police Det. Sgt. Jack Archer said.

“All the information we have has come from the two victims,” he

said.

Last week, police had said that three or four people had

approached the victims in the alley. But now, Archer said, that

number has increased.

“We now suspect there could have been anywhere between four and 10

people involved,” he said.

Officials had not been able to say last week whether the incident

was gang-related, but Archer said Monday that detectives were now

investigating it as “a possible gang-related incident.”

“There used to be gang activity in that area,” he said. “But it

had subsided for a while.”

Archer declined to release more information about the nature of

the argument or the condition of the other male victim, who is still

in Western Medical Center in Santa Ana.

The only description of the group involved in the shooting is that

they were in their late teens to early 20s, he said.

Wednesday’s shooting was not related to a similar alley shooting

in the Westside on Oct. 11, when 20-year-old Ferdinand Eugenio

Zamudio-Saucedo was killed after an unidentified man walked up to him

and shot him once in the chest after an argument, Archer said.

Police determined that that incident was not gang-related.