Gangs Threaten Proud Community : Cabrillo Village: Residents who defended their labor-camp homes from bulldozers now live in fear of violence by outsiders.

As sheriff’s investigators hunted for the gunmen who killed two residents of Cabrillo Village, the victims’ neighbors said gang violence is threatening their proud community--the first labor camp purchased by farm workers in Ventura County.

“I’ve been living here since the camp opened in 1965, back when we used to pay 50 cents a day for rent,” said Juan Francisco, 44, a former lemon packer who now works as a shoe repairman. “I’m not saying we didn’t have any problems back then, but we didn’t have bullets flying.”

Francisco was one of the 80 workers who formed the Cabrillo cooperative 16 years ago to save their homes from demolition. Now, he says, the area’s gangs are ruining the neighborhood that he and his co-workers fought so hard to build.

No one had been arrested by late Monday over the drive-by shooting that killed Rolando Martinez, 20, and Javier Ramirez, 19, and seriously injured two others early Sunday morning. Six Sheriff’s Department detectives on Monday were investigating the incident at Cabrillo Village, just east of the Ventura city limits. Both of the slain men had grown up there and were still living with their parents when they were killed.

Police could not confirm that the shooting was gang-related. However, Sheriff’s Lt. Joe Harwell said the shooting appeared to be motivated by concerns over territory. The shooters were more than 200 feet from the victims--making it highly unlikely that they knew at whom they were shooting, he said.

“That brings up the possibility of it being gang-related,” Harwell said. “At this point, we haven’t identified a group responsible.”

The shooters may have come into the area in retaliation for activities of another gang, Harwell said. But there is no indication that the victims had gang ties, he said.

Teen-agers who identified themselves as members of the Cabrillo Campers, a neighborhood gang, blamed the shootings on rival gangs.

On Nov. 10, 1989, three Ventura teen-agers attending a party in Cabrillo Village were shot in an apparently gang-related incident, Harwell said. Two 15-year-olds and a 17-year-old recovered, but the case was never solved, Harwell said.

Sunday’s incident was the first fatal random shooting that Harwell could recall within his jurisdiction.

Residents agree that the problem is getting serious. “This youth, it affects us,” said retired fruit picker Isidro Mesa, 83, another of the village’s original homeowners. “I used to be able to sit in my back yard and enjoy a beer on a hot summer night, but I can’t do that. And these boys drive in at all hours of the night and wake everybody up.”

Sixteen years ago, Mesa said, his house belonged to the Saticoy Lemon Co. and had been condemned by a health and safety inspector. The packing company’s labor contract had expired, and the entire housing project was to be razed. But while the first home was being torn down, the community rebelled.

They came out of their houses with their babies in tow and together they held hands, forming a human shield around the houses, newspaper reports said. With help from the Catholic Church and the United Farm Workers, they stopped the demolition.

Cabrillo Village was born out of this revolt. On May 5, 1976, on the anniversary of a Mexican victory over occupying French troops, Cabrillo residents handed over an $80,000 down payment to buy 80 houses.

The homes were renovated, roads improved and gas pipes repaired. In time, a soccer field, a small store and 80 peach-colored stucco apartments were added to the village. Today, Cabrillo is a tightknit enclave of bright houses and manicured lawns, where the children play freely and the Sunday soccer games after church attract the entire neighborhood.

The Cabrillo Campers formed about three years ago, neighbors said. Occasionally, they deface street signs with gang graffiti, but the residents don’t allow it to sit for long.

They aren’t drug dealers or thieves, several neighbors said, just kids who want to belong. They hang out on the street in black baseball caps and T-shirts.

“They are not bad kids, they just want to imitate the gangs in Los Angeles,” Juan Francisco said. “A lot of people are afraid, but we can’t be scared of them. We can’t let them ruin our homes.”

This is the first homicide in the neighborhood in at least three years, said statistics analyst Vern Cook of the Sheriff’s Department. Since Jan. 1, 1988, the 160 families have reported eight batteries, three incidents of domestic violence, seven residential burglaries, two commercial burglaries and two robberies. In addition, the Sheriff’s Department has reported four narcotics arrests and about 100 miscellaneous crimes, mostly misdemeanors such as car registration violations, Cook said.

“This doesn’t look any different than many neighborhoods in the county,” he said.

A study commissioned last summer by the city of Ventura said the Cabrillo Campers gang consists of 15 to 50 members. Members were not active in violent crimes during the time of the report but were involved in petty theft, it said.

Thus far, the Camper group has not posed a significant problem for the Ventura Police Department, said Sgt. Carl Handy, who heads the department’s special enforcement team dealing with gangs. “They’re not a major gang problem for the city,” he said.

“When you start having drive-by shootings, though, you certainly have to start looking at it in a new perspective,” Handy said. “It may be a random shooting or a planned event with specific targets in mind.”

“It creates a whole new level of violence in the community,” Handy said. “It’s not a comfortable thing to be looking at, because anybody can be victimized.”