Car Believed Used in Drive-By Attack Is Impounded

Ventura police impounded a car used in a drive-by shooting that sent a 12-year-old girl to the hospital, but the suspects--reputed gang members--were still at large late Saturday, authorities said.

At about 5 p.m. Friday, officers stopped a gray Oldsmobile in the 15000 block of West Telegraph Road near Santa Paula, and determined the car had been used in the shooting about two hours earlier at the Cabrillo Village housing project in east Ventura.

The car’s occupants, however, were not the suspects in the shooting, police said.

Three gang members armed with a handgun drove the car through the low-income housing development, randomly firing shots, authorities said.

Several hit a van with a 20-year-old woman and 15-year-old boy inside, but neither was injured.

They then stopped the car on South Saticoy Avenue at Cinco de Mayo--the main street into the development--where one of the passengers fired several shots into a group of schoolchildren walking along the street.

One bullet hit the girl, a student at Cabrillo Middle School, in the left arm. She sought shelter in a nearby church before being taken by ambulance to Ventura County Medical Center. She was treated and released Friday.

Officers said the shooting is part of ongoing tensions between two local youth gangs.