Gang Violence Claims a Model Son, Student : Crime: 16-year-old Robert Delgado of Gardena wasn’t killed over drugs or money, detectives say. Instead, he fell prey to ethnic rivalry between two groups of immigrants.

Each morning before Robert Delgado left for school, he made his bed and kissed his parents goodby. He kept his room immaculate, and when he came home, he cleaned the kitchen and bathroom before setting rice on the stove for the family’s dinner.

A junior at Leuzinger High School before he was killed in a drive-by shooting last week, Robert sang baritone in the school’s award-winning Select Chorale. He had decent grades and teachers spoke well of him.

He regularly attended church, and, knowing his parents couldn’t afford to send him to college, he planned to join the Air Force to earn tuition. By all accounts he was extremely close to his parents, who came to Gardena from the Philippines in the mid-1980s.

But his friends at school knew something that Romeo and Cleofe Delgado did not: Robert had recently joined a gang.

In some ways, Robert’s murder was like hundreds of gang-related shootings that have claimed the lives of more than 550 people in Los Angeles County this year. But police say the tensions that erupted into gunfire Nov. 5 differ from those that plague traditional Los Angeles gangs who fight over drugs, money and turf.

The gang rivalry that cost Robert his life “is not over drugs, and it’s not over money,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Ed Milkey. “It’s based on nationalities more than anything else.”

Shortly after he came to the United States and began his freshman year at Leuzinger, Robert met members of a relatively new Filipino gang called Hellside. While he had other friends and interests, say family and acquaintances, language and culture helped forge an irresistible bond between him and the gang members. At school, they often could be heard talking in Tagalog, their native language, and sometimes they lifted weights together at the gym.

For two years he resisted joining the gang, friends said. But four weeks ago, Robert agreed to be “jumped” into the gang, accepting a ritual beating that marked his affiliation. As part of the ritual, he received the gang name “Angel” and a cigarette burn on his left wrist, a fellow gang member said.

Although police and Robert’s parents say they are puzzled by his decision, some of Robert’s friends and acquaintances say they saw it coming.

“The people he was hanging out with, they were all in the gang,” said Leuzinger senior Roy Zirpoli, who sang with Robert in the Select Chorale. Joining the gang “wasn’t something he did because he wanted to be in the gang,” Zirpoli said. “He did it because his friends were in. There was a lot of pressure on him to do it.”

Police and gang specialists describe the gang as composed largely of students, many from Leuzinger in the Centinela Valley Union High School District. While members are known for having fist fights with rivals and occasionally spraying graffiti on walls around the South Bay, they “are not out there running the streets, jumping on people and doing dope deals,” Milkey said.

However, their main rival, a Vietnamese gang whose members are drawn from as far away as Orange County and the San Gabriel Valley, is not as reticent about violence, authorities said.

Animosity between the gangs led to a series of pay-back beatings in recent weeks. Then, on Nov. 5, the Vietnamese gang decided to settle the score with guns. “No one expected this,” Milkey said.

Soon after classes were dismissed, a car stopped in front of a house on 147th Street where Robert was standing with a group of gang friends. Riding in the car was a Vietnamese gang member who had been beaten by Filipino gang members earlier in the day on the Leuzinger campus, police said. He pointed, and shots were fired.

A bullet struck Robert in the head. He died on the sidewalk, clutching his school books.

Police Tuesday arrested three men and one juvenile on suspicion of the murder, but refused to release their names, saying they are seeking other suspects in the killing. Milkey said Robert probably was not their target.

For Romeo Delgado, a former Filipino police officer who came here in 1985 in search of a better life for his family, Robert’s death left questions.

After taking two years to establish himself in Gardena, Romeo, now a medical lab assistant, was joined by Cleofe and Robert in 1987. The Delgados, who left three younger children behind in their hometown of Bacolod, were planning to reunite the family once they could pay for a large enough apartment.

Sitting on their son’s bed Tuesday, the Delgados said they probably will let their children finish high school in the Philippines before sending for them.

After showing off Robert’s room, his papers, his wallet with their picture in it and a computer that only Robert knew how to use, Romeo said of the gang: “If I knew about that group, I would stop him. But I never heard Robert made trouble. For us, he was a good one.”

At Robert’s funeral at St. Jerome Catholic Church on Monday morning, the disparate elements of Robert’s short life came together.

While members of the Select Chorale sang “One Moment in Time,” about 15 of Robert’s homeboys sat apart in the audience.

Chorale instructor James Johnston remembered him as “a good person, who was always warm and friendly” and who often started rehearsals with an impromptu solo followed by a self-mocking “oops.”

Referring to remarks by the priest earlier that Robert was now singing in a celestial choir, Johnston said: “I envy that choir because (it) surely has an excellent baritone now.”

But at the Delgados’ request, the priest also spoke candidly about Robert’s gang affiliation, urging his friends to do their part to stop the cycle of violence.

“There’s so much peer pressure out there to get involved,” noted Father Gerard G. King. “The gangs here in Los Angeles are a terrible thing, and we should all try to do our best to work against that mentality . . . and give encouragement to those who don’t want to be involved.”

Romeo Delgado said he worries that the pay-backs will continue.

“I don’t want revenge,” he said. “My son already is dead--it hurts so I cannot take it. But I don’t want the story to repeat. All I’m asking for now is justice.”