Shooting May Be First by Asian Gangs in Pomona : Violence: A 16-year-old is killed in a drive-by attack. The city has long been plagued by black and Latino gangs.

A 16-year-old Vietnamese youth was shot to death in Pomona on Sunday, the victim of what police believe was the first gang violence initiated by Asians in a city that has long suffered from battles waged by black and Latino gangs.

Luc Huynh was standing outside a party shortly after midnight when unknown assailants in three vehicles sped past him, firing a spray of bullets, said Pomona Police Lt. Larry Todd. Friends rushed the wounded teen-ager to Pomona Valley Community Hospital, where he died of a gunshot wound to the upper chest, police said.

The drive-by shooting apparently was initiated by Asian gang members, “and to the best of my knowledge that’s the first incident of this type that we’ve had,” said Todd. He added that investigators had not determined whether Huynh was a gang member.

The murder may have been an isolated incident, Todd said. But in a city where territorial wars between Latino gangs have raged for years--a 7-month-old baby wounded while nestled in its father’s arms was among the most recent victims--no incidents of gang violence are being taken lightly, the lieutenant said.

“Right now, most of our gang people are assigned to the black and Hispanic gangs which are predominant here,” said Todd. He added, however, that investigators from Pomona “will be contacting Orange County and other places where there are large Asian populations and finding out if what we have here may be the start of something new.”

One city official lamented the gang violence that has shaken many Pomona residents. Councilwoman Nell Soto said that police are still uncertain whether Huynh’s shooting was gang-related, but she said it really doesn’t matter.

“We have a problem with our youth, whatever the ethnicity,” said Soto, whose family has lived in Pomona for eight generations. “It isn’t just Pomona. It’s all over. And we have to come up with programs to abate this problem.

“I know what Pomona can be,” she added. “If we lose our children, society is lost.”

Pomona, a city of 121,000 35 miles east of Los Angeles, is only one of many areas reflecting the growing tide of gang violence throughout Los Angeles County, officials said. This year, 1,302 felonies were attributed to gangs through March. And Huynh was only one of several to fall victim to possibly gang-related violence over the weekend.

Less than three hours after Huynh was shot down, five men in Lynwood were wounded in a shooting that may have been gang-related, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Jack Ewell.

The men were sitting in a vehicle on California Street near Imperial Highway about 2:30 a.m. Sunday when shots rang out, wounding two in the chest, two in the leg and one in the head, said Ewell. They were taken to St. Francis Medical Center, where two were in critical condition and three were listed in stable condition with less serious wounds. None of the victims were identified.