Westside man injured in shooting

Costa Mesa police said late Wednesday they are looking for three men, one of whom police suspect of shooting a Costa Mesa man Wednesday night in a gang-related incident on Shalimar Drive.

The 21-year-old shooting victim was in his driveway in the 700 block of Shalimar around 7 p.m. when three men came up to him and demanded to know what gang he was in, Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Marty Carver said. When the man denied belonging to a gang, one of the men raised a shotgun and fired it at him, hitting him in the left arm.

"He was simply hanging out in front of his house when these people approached him," Carver said.

Carver said police believe that the victim associates with a Costa Mesa gang and that the suspects belong to a rival gang. But Carver also said police had no information, such as graffiti, to suggest a gang feud in the neighborhood.

After the victim was shot, the men fled into an alley on foot. Carver said police have no other information about the attackers. The victim was taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, where he was expected to require surgery for tissue damage to his arm. Carver said his injuries were not life-threatening.

Neighbors had mixed reactions to Wednesday's shooting.

A woman pushing her daughter in a stroller on Wallace Avenue on Thursday said she heard a siren the previous night, but she didn't know it was heading to a gunshot victim.

Speaking in Spanish, she said she lives on James Street near Shalimar Drive. In the 12 years she has lived in the neighborhood, she said, crimes like Wednesday's shooting have been uncommon.

"It's usually calm here," she said. "I have never heard of anything like that [the shooting] happening around here."

Another woman who was walking with her toddler son near the corner of Wallace Avenue and Shalimar Drive said Shalimar is known as an area where some "trouble makers" hang out.

"I don't like to walk down that street at night, only during the day," she said.

Fearing reprisal, both women wished to remain anonymous.

The recent violence is apparently a sign that the efforts to make the area safer have not been a complete success.

In the early 1990s, the city blocked off Shalimar Drive from Placentia Avenue and barred street parking to try to curb drug dealing and gang problems, and in 1994 community groups opened the Shalimar Learning Center to help neighborhood youth.