Rites Held for Young Father Shot by Gang : Funeral Mass: A priest calls for an end to violence as mourners grieve for Jack Cisneros, an innocent bystander slain near his home on New Year’s Day.

A parish priest on Monday called for peace, reconciliation and an end to a cycle of violence that on New Year’s Day turned a 33-year-old innocent bystander into Orange County’s first gang-related slaying victim of 1991.

Jack Cisneros, a long-distance runner struggling to build his own landscaping business, was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest in the third and final outburst of violence that left seven others wounded after a New Year’s Eve party confrontation.

“He was not involved with gang warfare at any time,” Father Fergus Clarke told more than 350 somber-faced relatives and friends who had gathered Monday morning at a funeral Mass at St. Joseph Catholic Church.

“What a shame it is that innocent blood should be shed over it,” the white-robed Catholic priest said of the gang rivalries that claimed a son of one of Placentia’s oldest and largest families. “This death has been so useless. We’ve got to put an end to this kind of stuff.”

As Cisneros’ widow, Vicki Jo, wept silently in an oak pew, the priest pleaded for anyone with knowledge of those responsible for the shotgun killing on a Placentia sidewalk to share it with police instead of taking the law into his own hands.

“Are you going to sit back and say nothing?” thed priest asked in his Irish accent. “If there is someone out there with information, in order to build a fuller life of peace and service to your community, you must go to the police and tell them what you know.”

The chain of events began near the stroke of midnight in Placentia’s La Jolla barrio, according to witnesses. A guest at a party in the 800 block of Nebraska Avenue drew a gun to fire his New Year’s greeting aloft, but neighborhood men made him put the weapon away. Within minutes, tempers flared between the La Jolla guests and those from the Cypress Street barrio in Orange. The resulting melee spilled into the street.

By the time police from several cities converged on the La Jolla neighborhood shortly before 12:30 a.m., six men and boys had been stabbed, most of them from La Jolla. Clashing revelers had scattered. More than an hour later, reports of shots fired brought the police back to Nebraska Avenue, where they found a 17-year-old boy from Orange with a bullet wound in his leg.

Two blocks away, at 2:50 a.m., as Cisneros stood across the street from his Tafolla Street home in a semicircle of neighbors talking about the earlier commotion, a small, dark sedan swerved over and stopped. One of its occupants called out a gang slogan, witnesses said. It was followed by a single shotgun blast that caught Cisneros full in the chest.

Suddenly, his 8-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter he had been baby-sitting were without a father. So too, were the twin sons, John and James, who were born Dec. 29, and his son Richard, 13, by an earlier marriage.

No arrests have been made in Cisneros’ slaying, Placentia police said Monday. Virtually every detective in the department has been assigned to the complex case, and they were working with police in Orange to forestall further acts of retaliation.

But Sgt. Russ Rice said last week that the investigation has been hampered by a “code of silence” prevailing among neighborhood youths.

That code must change, Clarke told those assembled in the modest Bradford Avenue church, which was still decked with wreaths and other signs of Christmas. He urged everyone to become involved in the lives of the neighborhood children, to give them alternatives “so they will not seek out gangs. . . .”

“So that the next generation will know how to live in peace and harmony with one another,” the sandy-haired priest said.

At Monday’s funeral Mass and at a Sunday evening rosary service attended by more than 700 people at St. Joseph’s, friends and relatives shared memories of Cisneros.

One of seven brothers and sisters, he was described as a family man, a devoted father and a dedicated cross-country runner.

Junior high school counselor Jim Segovia said the young Jack was “a Mexicano Dennis the Menace,” an exuberant boy who was “always running and chasing other kids or being chased,” and who worked hard to earn his high school diploma.

When gangs claimed the allegiance of many of his classmates, “Jackie had the guts to say no,” said Segovia, now 53, who himself was raised in the La Jolla barrio with Jack’s father, uncles and aunts. “Everybody loved Jackie.”

Segovia called for forgiveness: “Let’s pray for the person who shot Jackie. Let’s forgive. It’s all we can do. Forget this vengeance. I claim La Jolla. La Jolla is a nice place and to keep it that way, you have to say ‘it all begins with me.’ ”

A former La Jolla gang member who went to elementary school with Cisneros recalled him as peace-loving even as a child.

“When violence was there, Jackie would walk away,” said the 33-year-old Placentia man, who wouldn’t give his name. “He would tell kids who were in the gangs: ‘That’s not the best way of life, there’s a better way to live. . . . One day you’ll have families and kids. You need to get prepared.’ ”

But few seemed to heed Cisneros, and violence became increasingly routine in the former community of farm laborers, residents said. That’s why 30-year-old Dennis Gonzales moved from La Jolla.

“Because of this kind of thing,” a disgusted Gonzales said, gesturing toward his cousin’s coffin as pallbearers loaded it into a hearse for the long trip to the graveyard. “He was innocent. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

At Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in the hills of Orange, the mood gave way to grief and bewilderment for the more than 200 friends and relatives clustered around the immediate family for a short burial ceremony. Hardly anyone but the priest spoke.

Eyes downcast, 31-year-old Vicki Jo Cisneros sat beside the covered grave, tears dropping on her folded arms. Behind her stood Richard, Jack’s 13-year-old son. His face appeared pale, and he seemed stunned by the rush of events that had brought him there.

At Vicki Jo’s feet, the couple’s son, Jack Jr., 8, sat cross-legged, his chin resting in one hand, staring at the burnished copper fittings on his father’s casket.

The couple’s daughter, Josephine, 3, sat beside him, squinting at Father Clarke as the priest blessed the burial site with holy water. The child seemed puzzled when Jack’s older brother, Victor, sobbed inconsolably as he laid a white carnation on the coffin.

Then, as mourners began to filter away, Vicki Jo was led to the coffin on the arm of her 63-year-old mother-in-law, Millie Cisneros. The young widow and new mother laid a single red rose over all the other flowers on the coffin.

“I love you,” she whispered, and walked away.