TUSTIN : Residents Propose Anti-Crime Strategy

More than 100 residents of Pepperwood, a usually quiet, middle-class neighborhood, gathered Wednesday night to seek city action following a shooting in Magnolia Park last week.

Members of the Peppertree Homeowners Assn., meeting at Nelson Elementary School, voted to ask the City Council to install all-night security lighting at the city-owned park and to rigorously enforce a 10 p.m. curfew there.

Resident Alicia Eppinger, said: “I’ve lived in Peppertree 17 years; I walk by that park every day. I’ve noticed in the last year or so kids from other areas come in and drink beer and play basketball, and the police don’t do anything about it.”

Although Tustin police say that last Thursday’s shooting was possibly gang-related, they are calling it an isolated incident.

Police say they believe that Paul Norman Supancheck, 18, arrested in connection with the shooting of Chealvy Ly, 19, is a member of Los Suicycos, a gang of middle-class youths from Tustin and Irvine.

But Irvine and Tustin police say Los Suicycos members are generally involved in vandalism and drinking, not violence. They are usually 13- to 15-year-olds from upper-middle-class neighborhoods, said Steve Lewis, a Tustin Police community service officer.

“This is not a hard-core gang. The kids involved in this gang are lightweights. They’re not into drive-by shootings and things like that,” Lewis said.

The gang’s logo is an S with an upside-down T drawn on it. Resembling a dollar sign, the logo stands for Suicidal Tendencies, a music group popular in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Lewis said.

The gang is loosely organized, with 30 to 40 members, and opposed to racist ideas, Lewis said.

Police began seeing Los Suicycos graffiti about a year ago, when 60 feet of a wall of Tustin Marketplace was covered with writing and symbols, Lewis said. Since then the graffiti has been found in north Irvine and south Tustin.

Supancheck, who was arrested Saturday on suspicion of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, is being held in the County Jail with bail set at $50,00.