Two men who claim to belong to rival street gangs are behind bars after police investigated a pair of unrelated cases of gun violence in the Trainsong Park area of west Eugene.

One of the suspects, 18-year-old Daniel Sotelo of Cottage Grove, allegedly intended to shoot West Side Piru gang members during a drive-by incident near the park on Sept. 23. The shooting was prevented when Sotelo’s handgun malfunctioned, police said.

Sotelo is a “self-identified leader” of the South Side Play Boy Sureno Trece gang, police said.

Sotelo was arrested Thursday and is being held in the Lane County Jail on charges of attempted murder, attempted first-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon and menacing.

Sotelo’s arrest came one day after Eugene police apprehended a West Side Piru member on charges that he shot up a young family’s Wilkie Street home last year because he suspected that they had become “neighborhood whistle-blowers,” police Sgt. Scott McKee said.

The suspect, Barry Hasty Jr., faces charges of menacing, unlawful use of a weapon and reckless endangering in connection with the Sept. 13, 2010, shooting in a Bethel area neighborhood about one block south of Trainsong Park.

McKee said West Side Piru gang members claim the park as “their turf” and that neighbors have complained to police about gang-related gunfire and vandalism in the area.

Hasty, 20, lives in the neighborhood and is accused of firing several gunshots into the side of a home that had been rented by a young couple and their three children.

Although no one was injured, bullets flew through two bedrooms — one of which was occupied by a sleeping baby, police said.

McKee said the shooting prompted the family to move from the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, an investigation is continuing into the drive-by shooting attempt that led to Sotelo’s arrest.

Hours after the attempted shooting, Sotelo and others returned to the area and confronted a man they had wrongly suspected of being a West Side Piru member, police said.

The alleged driver in the return visit to the area, 38-year-old Loucinda Reeves of Eugene, was arrested Thursday on charges of hindering prosecution, tampering with evidence and furnishing alcohol to minors.

Police said in a news release that Reeves associates with the South Side Play Boy Sureno Trece gang and has helped them in a number of ways.

A Lane County grand jury indicted Reeves, Sotelo and Hasty on Tuesday.