3 Slain on Pomona Street by Hail of Bullets From Truck

Friends and relatives of Cornelio Perez Ruiz sat stone-faced Sunday under a lemon tree on the quiet, sun-baked cul-de-sac in Pomona where earlier the young man and two friends had been shot to death.

Perez, who turned 18 a week ago; Vincent Salazar, 20, and Eduardo Cruz, 17, were gunned down outside Perez’s home on Lee Place about 2 a.m. Sunday as they walked home from a convenience store.

Police said they were seeking three to six armed men riding in a small truck who had argued with the three victims at the store, then opened fire on them with pistols and a semiautomatic rifle.

“My son was a good boy,” Primitivo Perez, 66, said in Spanish as he sat in a folding chair on his front lawn, a straw hat shading his face. “And now they took him from me. What can I say? I know nothing. I do not know why this happened.”

The victims did not appear to be affiliated with a gang, police said. But detectives suspect that the gunmen may belong to one of the four or five local Latino gangs.

Gang violence is nothing new in the city of 121,000 residents 35 miles east of Los Angeles. Two people were killed and five injured in two days of gang shootings in January, prompting the arrest of 36 people. Territorial wars among Latino gangs in Pomona have been common for years.

Nevertheless, Sunday’s triple homicide shattered a calm of many months and left an air of unease among residents in the neat tract houses of south Pomona where the victims had lived--and died.

The elder Perez, who had just returned from a weekend trip to Mexicali to learn his son was dead, was surrounded by friends and relatives Sunday.

Several months ago, Perez said, someone had fired a shot into his home. For some time, he has been trying to sell his house to move back to Mexico with his wife after 35 years in Pomona.

Some neighbors, many of whom had been awakened by the shootings, expressed surprise that violence had reached their community. But others said they saw it coming because the corner where the Perez house sits was becoming a youth hangout.

“I know there are a lot of gangs in the area, but it’s the first time it’s come down this little street,” said a resident, who would only identify herself as Kathy.

“They were the type you’d see and right off the bat know they were gangs,” said another neighbor, a county worker who asked not to be identified. “It was just an invitation for someone to come by and start making trouble.”

Perez was a student at Garey High School, his friends said, while Salazar worked at a bottling plant in Lakewood. Additional information about Cruz was not available.

“This shows gang violence plagues all communities,” Pomona Police Lt. Larry Todd said. “Nobody’s immune. That’s the sad part.”

Four other people died in gang violence in the county late Saturday and early Sunday.

* Samuel White, 15, was killed when three to four men shot him and a 15-year-old girl as the victims stood on a street corner in South Los Angeles about 9:40 p.m. Saturday, police said. The girl, Eve Thornton, was hospitalized in stable condition.

* Jose Ortiz, 15, was killed and two others wounded when a gunman opened fire at a wedding anniversary party in East Los Angeles at 11:10 p.m. Saturday, sheriff’s deputies said. Steven Gonzales, 14, and John Chavez, 31, were hospitalized in stable condition.

* Albert Harris, 22, a suspected gang member, died about 4 a.m. Sunday after two reputed members of a rival gang shot him in the head at a hamburger stand at 254 E. Manchester Ave., Los Angeles police said.

No arrests have been made in the three shootings.

* A 16-year-old female gang member was arrested in the stabbing death of Roberto Mendieta, 18, after a robbery at 2:10 a.m. in the 1300 block of South Kenmore Avenue. The suspect was held at Juvenile Hall on suspicion of murder and robbery. Several other assailants, described only as young men, were at large, Los Angeles police said.

Times staff writer Darrell Dawsey contributed to this story.