Friends Mourn Slain Jeweler : Crime: Robert Fernandez is remembered as proud, confident and possessed of a drive that impressed those who knew him. Now, a pal says, ‘it’s for naught.’

Robert Fernandez was a proud and popular Chicano.

Fernandez, who died in a gun battle with robbers at his jewelry store Monday, was remembered by friends Tuesday as an outspoken officer in a student group at Santa Ana High School.

He had an opinion on everything, said Arturo Gonzalez, 31. Fernandez was “confident and proud . . . his wasn’t a rags to riches story. They were a modest, humble family. But I always got that feeling from him, that he was sure he was going to make something of himself.”

Fernandez, 32, died in the rear room of his store, Topaz Jewelry and Gifts, on Grand Avenue north of 1st Street. His slaying shocked the local business community and members of Orange County’s jewelry trade.

“It seems like when someone has something going good, it’s for naught,” lamented Gonzalez.

Also killed was suspected robber Jose Angel Raya Rodriguez, 23, of Orange. Three other unidentified male suspects remained at large Tuesday, police said.

Friends described Fernandez, the oldest of eight brothers and sisters, as a “pretty popular” guy in Santa Ana’s Class of ’79. He was an officer in MEChA, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan. The student group focuses on political, economic and social issues important to people of Mexican descent and to those who use the term Chicano to identify themselves.

Fernandez’s interest in jewelry apparently began during high school, where he took jewelry-making classes.

“I know he was always in there,” said David Villa, 33, of Santa Ana, who said he took classes with Fernandez. “That used to keep him busy.”

Fernandez was known as a young man who could protect himself and his friends in some of Santa Ana’s toughest neighborhoods, friends said.

Fernandez, who had an athletic build, took up karate and jogging and began working odd jobs and construction in Orange County for several years, family members and friends said.

His ultimate goal was to save enough money so he could be his own boss and open a jewelry store, said his cousin, Jose Espinosa of Diamond Bar. Fernandez began selling jewelry to friends and relatives out of a small case, friends said.

“He was trying any way he could think of to build up his business,” said Alfred Laguna, a barber who cut Fernandez’s hair since he graduated from high school.

“He was a go-getter. He would go out in the streets and hustle door-to-door.”

In 1989, Fernandez opened Topaz Jewelry and Gifts, where he and his wife, Cuca, and other family members worked, according to county records.

According to friends, Fernandez and his wife have two daughters, ages 5 and 3, and a 6-month-old boy.

“We don’t understand how anyone could do this,” Espinosa said of the slaying of his cousin. “He never bothered anybody. For this to happen is not right. . . . It had to be an outsider who had no sense. None.”

Investigators on Tuesday said it remained unclear what happened just before the 3:45 p.m. shooting at Fernandez’s store in a busy shopping corridor.

Four men arrived in a stolen 1988 gold-colored Mercury and entered the shop, where Fernandez was working with his father, Secundino Fernandez, 66, Helton said.

Moments later, a shootout ensued between the Fernandezes and the suspects, police said. The younger Fernandez and Raya Rodriguez were shot and both died shortly afterward. Secundino Fernandez was not injured.

Three suspects ran from the store. Police located their car, recently stolen in Los Angeles, and began searching it for clues, Helton said.

On Tuesday, small clusters of area residents passed the jewelry shop, sandwiched between a barbershop and a grocery store, as though paying last respects. A child peered inside the darkened business through one of six bullet holes that riddled the plate-glass windows.

The shooting also caused concern among those who did not know Fernandez.

“Everybody’s running scared. There’s nothing much we can do about it, it’s just the way it is,” said Blossom Torres, owner of Butch’s Jewelry in Placentia, who was tied up during a dramatic store robbery last year.

Since that store robbery, during which bandits got away with $58,000 in jewelry and 35 guns, Torres has beefed up security. Now, customers get buzzed in electronically, one at a time.

“You have to do what you got to do,” Torres, 64, said. “In our case, we have them coming in one at a time, or they don’t come through at all.”

Newport Beach jewelry store owner Fred Mozaffarian, 32, called the Fernandez shooting “a terrible thing.”

Less than six months ago, Mozaffarian found himself with a gun pointed at his face by a robber who entered his store. Like Fernandez, Mozaffarian fought back. When he fought, the gunman fired his weapon and the bullet missed Mozaffarian “by an inch or so.”

Westminster Police Chief James Cook acknowledged that today’s poor business climate creates pressure on businesses. Small businesses “are on the edge,” and cannot even afford to lose insured items, he said.

But “statistically speaking you’re better off giving whatever the robber wants rather than getting involved in a wild shooting,” said Cook, president of the Orange County Chiefs of Police & Sheriff’s Assn.

Police are “sensitive to the fact that any business owner does not want to lose property,” said Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton, “but there is a greater issue here, and that is loss of life.”