North County Shootings on the Rise : Crime: Numbers of drive-by shootings soar in Oceanside and Escondido. Gangs are blamed.

Carolina Parada doesn’t hear the guns anymore, not since Salvador Tantoja was killed.

In two years of living in Escondido, Parada and her 5-year-old son, Victor, have gotten used to diving to the floor at the sound of gunshots, the calling card of two warring gangs in their neighborhood.

But in August, Tantoja, a 37-year-old Mexico City resident who worked at a San Diego restaurant, was mistaken for a gang member and gunned down while standing with some friends across the street from Parada’s house.

Since then, the guns have quieted and the gang that used to hang out at the corner has been dispersed by police, Parada said, bringing some semblance of peace to the neighborhood at Eighth Avenue near Quince Street for the first time in the two years she has lived there.

“We would be watching television and the next thing, I would be jumping on the floor,” said Parada, 25. “I would be afraid for my son, because you never know what is going to happen.”

The killing of Tantoja, the second drive-by homicide in Escondido this year, is part of a dramatic increase in drive-by shootings plaguing North County’s two largest cities.

In the first eight months of this year, drive-by shootings, a staple of gangs taking revenge on their enemies, eclipsed the figures of all of last year in Escondido by nearly 50%, according to a police report. Police officials said they expect year-end figures to show a more than 60% increase in drive-by shootings over last year.

Police say the 46 drive-by shootings in Oceanside over the same period this year represents a 53% increase over all of last year.

“We have experienced the biggest increase in drive-by shootings this year that I can remember,” said Detective Ruben Sandoval of the Oceanside Police Department’s gang unit.

“Primarily, it is because gangs are fighting for turf control,” Sandoval said. “We have more gangs in the last couple of years, and they have become more active against each other than they were before.”

But that city has been troubled by gangs for years. More surprisingly, Escondido, which has long held the reputation of a quiet, suburban community free of the social ills of urban areas, has surpassed Oceanside in the number of drive-by shootings.

Escondido Police Lt. John Wilson said his inland city has had 48 drive-by shootings from January until the end of August this year, a 41% increase over the 34 in all of 1991, and 45% more than the 33 in 1990.

“By far the most significant factor is gang-related,” Wilson said. “We also have drug-related drive-bys, and believe it or not there are even some domestic violence-related ones.”

Three of the drive-bys this year have been ones where a husband or boyfriend shot at his wife or girlfriend’s home, Wilson said.

Wilson estimated that gangs were responsible for about 80% of the drive-by shootings, with the availability of guns--mostly stolen ones--being a primary reason for the upswing in violence.

“The No. 1 reason is the change in mentality of the gang member, which is you aren’t a man unless you have a gun,” Wilson said. “Most often, it is perhaps somebody is dating somebody’s sister, or it is pay-back for somebody’s cousin getting roughed up by another gang member.”

Police say drive-by shootings in San Diego have increased 4% to 290, while drive-bys in the Vista-San Marcos area have fallen 21% to 18.

Gangs in the North County cities began arming themselves around 1989, Sandoval said, foregoing less-deadly weapons such as knives and baseball bats. Since then, Sandoval said, gangs have become gradually more violent, culminating in a dramatic increase in drive-by shootings this year.

Gangs in Oceanside also have become more heavily involved in armed robberies, Sandoval said, though he did not have figures.

Steve Lomelin, a former gang member now working with the Escondido Youth Encounter to steer children away from gangs, agreed that the increase in gunplay has been motivated by machismo.

“A lot of these kids are pretty small physically,” Lomelin said. “So it is saving face for themselves. They don’t have to stand there and take a whipping when they can just drive by and shoot somebody.”

Lomelin said small gangs are sprouting up in Escondido and doing battle with the older gangs, which are fighting back to maintain their turf.

The Escondido police have a “zero-tolerance posture,” Wilson said, where “we just come down with basically all the pressure we can on the people we know are behind it.”

Wilson said the gangs have now become the department’s “No. 1 priority,” and weapons are being confiscated from suspected gang members.

Sandoval said Oceanside police have stepped up foot patrols in areas high in gang crimes and, like Escondido, are keeping close tabs on gang members and aggressively prosecuting them for even minor infractions.

Police often know who committed a given drive-by shooting, but many witnesses fear retaliation from gangs if they testify in court against a gang member, so most drive-bys go unprosecuted.

“With most of our gang-related shootings, we have a real good idea shortly after it has happened who was responsible for it,” Sandoval said. “Our biggest problem comes to when we have to prove it in court.”

Two people have been killed in drive-by shootings in Escondido, most recently Aug. 27 when 22-year-old Raul Lopez allegedly gunned down Tantoja.

Lopez has been charged with one count of murder and is awaiting trial in San Diego Superior Court in January.

No figures were available on how many Oceanside homicides have been the result of drive-by shootings.

Escondido Mayor Jerry Harmon was dismayed by the numbers, but, he said, “Escondido is not unique.”

“We are experiencing the same phenomenon that has been going on to a greater extent throughout Southern California and maybe even in the country.”

Besides focusing police attention on gangs, he said the city should set up more neighborhood watch programs, educate children about gangs and step up code enforcement to clean up the neighborhoods.