A new Westside for stabbing victim

Deepa Bharath

John grew up in the tough neighborhoods of the Westside.

The 16-year-old played on Shalimar Drive as a little boy and

didn’t think twice about it.

He knew gang members walked those streets. He’d heard of people

getting beaten up. But John, who moved away from that neighborhood

six months ago, always used common sense when he lived in the

Shalimar area. He’d avoid eye contact and walk straight down the

street without turning right or left.

John still hangs out with his friends in his old neighborhood. He

thought he was in tune with his surroundings -- until the night of

April 15, when he says two men brutally attacked him, stabbed him

several times and chased him down the street.

Police said the two suspects belong to a Costa Mesa gang. John

says he has never been involved in gangs. The bookish teenager, who

dreams about a career in computers, says he was shocked by a random

attack when he was just “minding my own business.”

John says he was walking with three other friends near 19th Street

and Wallace Avenue at about 9:30 p.m. April 15 when a man on a

bicycle stopped and started talking with one of the boys.

“I didn’t know who this guy was,” he said. “He looked at me. I

looked at him. And then, I turned away.”

That’s when it happened, John said.

“Suddenly, just out of the blue, this guy punched me,” he said.

“And I was like, ‘Whoa! What’s going on here?’”

And then the man pulled out a pair of scissors and waved it

menacingly at him, John said.

“He started saying stuff like I owed him money,” he said. “I

hadn’t seen this guy. I didn’t know who he was.”

The situation escalated when a car pulled over with men who seemed

to be friends of the man John said attacked him.

“A guy got out of the passenger seat and came running at me,” he

said. That’s when one of the men stabbed him with the scissors in the

head and hand.

“He also stabbed me on the back of the neck,” he said. “But it was

so sudden and so shocking. I couldn’t even feel that cut on my neck.”

John said the man also bit him on the side.

“I could feel his teeth get in and out of my body,” he said,

flinching. “It hurt.”

By this time, all the boys he was with were scared for their

lives, John said.

“We just started running,” he said. “My shoes were coming off. But

I just took them off. I ran without my shoes.”

But the men chased him down the street, John said.

“They were speaking in Spanish, and all I could hear was this

whole thing was a ‘deer hunt,’” he said.

John, who was still running, panting and bleeding from the attack,

looked behind and saw one of the men pull out a knife, he said.

“And I was like, ‘Oh crap!’ I ran into a friend’s house nearby and

locked the door behind me,” he said.

The friend’s brother called the paramedics, John said. He was

admitted to Hoag Hospital, where he was treated and released in the

morning.

The incident, which happened barely a week before his 16th

birthday, was a “shocker,” John said.

“It totally ruined my spring break,” he said, with a wan smile.

Costa Mesa Police arrested one of John’s alleged attackers,

20-year-old Juan Gabriel-Campos, on April 28. But another man is

still at large, Lt. Dale Birney said. He said the men are members of

a Costa Mesa gang.

Police don’t know what prompted the reported attack, Birney said.

“It’s very uncommon to have a random attack,” he said. “Usually,

it’s gang-to-gang fights or someone insulted someone. There’s usually

a catalyst that spurs the attack.”

That said, Birney added, it is also possible that something that

would appear normal to a lay person may upset a gang member.

“Something as simple as a look or a glance may be construed as

disrespect,” he said.

A Costa Mesa resident who serves as John’s mentor said the

incident horrified him.

“To attack someone without any provocation,” he said. “That’s just

horrible.”

The mentor said he is trying to get John and his family to another

community where they will feel safer.

The mentor is also working with John and a Costa Mesa church to

organize a “gang summit” to provide a forum for the issue. John is

expected to share his experience and speak against gang violence

during the summit, which, the mentor says, is planned in the near

future.

John said he had never felt threatened in the Westside

neighborhood where he grew up.

“I knew everyone there,” he said. “I never felt scared. I just

tried to keep it cool with everybody.”

But the April 15 incident was something he had never expected, he

said.

“It felt like a dream,” he said. “You don’t expect to get hit when

you don’t do anything and trying to stay out of trouble.”

The incident has changed his life in some ways, he said.

“My friends don’t let me take the bus by myself,” he said. “I try

not to walk alone and walk only in places I’m familiar with.”

John says he still thinks about that night. But he believes his

life is back to normal. He’s even gone back to school.

“I thought, in the beginning, I was going to be mad about this,”

he said. “But I’m not. I think I’m OK with it. I’m ready to move on.”

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.