Woman Shot Near Area Where Girl Was Gunned Down : Long Beach: The 24-year-old victim was listed in fair condition after the drive-by attack in turbulent neighborhood.

A 24-year-old woman has become the latest shooting victim in a turbulent Long Beach neighborhood where a 12-year-old girl was gunned down earlier this week, apparently by gang members, police said Thursday.

Vicenta Salinas was shot twice Wednesday night as she and a group of friends stood by a vending truck in front of her home in the 1400 block of Chestnut Avenue. Police said a passenger in a passing truck stuck a gun out the window, shouted obscenities and fired. Salinas was struck in the wrist and abdomen. She was listed in fair condition late Thursday in the intensive-care unit at St. Mary Medical Center.

The shooting occurred less than a block from the site where Anita Briones, 12, was slain. Family members said the girl had pleaded for her life as she was chased and gunned down early Sunday. Her brutal slaying stunned police and city officials as well as area residents.

While police have not linked Salinas’ shooting to the Briones’ murder, they said that a fatal drive-by shooting Tuesday night in another section of the city apparently was an act of revenge for the death of the youngster. Javier Vigil, 18, was shot to death while he stood beside his car outside a friend’s home in the 1500 block of Summit Street on Tuesday night. Jimmy Montoya, 18, was wounded.

“We’re at war right now, and it’s back and forth, back and forth,� Montoya said Thursday.

Vigil’s friends, who were busy collecting money for his funeral Thursday, said that the young man dropped out of his gang upon turning 18 and was not involved in Anita Briones’ death. “We just partied. We’re not into (gangs,) man. When we turned 18, we said, ‘We’re adults now.’ We left that behind,� said Vince Padilla, 18.

Three men and one juvenile have been arrested in the Vigil shooting and the death of Anita Briones continues to be under investigation.

Police also revealed Thursday that Anita appeared to have gang affiliations, despite continued denials from family members.

She had “Little Goofy� and the name of the neighborhood’s gang written on her sneakers, according to Norm Sorenson, the Long Beach Police Department’s gang detective. She also had three dots, a gang-symbol, tattooed on her wrist, Sorenson said.

When the 12-year-old was shot in a crime-ridden neighborhood about two miles from her home, she was also wearing a black jacket popular among girls in the neighborhood’s gang, Sorenson said.

Arturo Rosales, the girl’s stepfather, denied that she was a gang member. “She was only 12 years old. She didn’t know anything. She was just beginning to live,� Rosales said in Spanish.

Neither Rosales nor police could explain what the youngster was doing in the inner-city neighborhood at 3:45 a.m., when she was shot. The girl’s mother, Kandie Rosales, said earlier that her daughter was waiting for her sister, Felicia, to give her a ride home after a party that ended around 9 p.m.

Anita had been waiting nearly seven hours in the area when a car with gang members drove up. She approached the car and, after an exchange, two of the occupants got out and shot her while she tried to escape, according to police.

“It was a cold-blooded murder. They are dirty dogs and we are going to hunt them down and get them in jail,� Sorenson said.

Police arrested and charged two gang members with murder and are searching for other suspects.