A ‘Family’ Lost : Accident: Grieving friends of taggers killed in plunge off freeway say they provided a sense of belonging. Group is collecting money for the victims’ funerals.

Every Saturday afternoon for the last month or so, Jesus Chinkosky and his friends had met at a park in La Puente, where they told jokes and caught up on news but wasted little time before getting down to business.

“They had big maps outlined for every place they wanted to go,” said Claudia Melendez, Chinkosky’s fiancee. “They had maps of different freeways they were going to hit.”

Chinkosky and his friends were members of a San Gabriel Valley tagging crew, about 80 teen-agers and young adults who shared a passion for the illegal practice of defacing freeway overpasses.

But this Saturday, the park meeting was abruptly called off. Chinkosky, known as Daddy among his crew, and six others were killed early Friday while driving on one of the same freeways they cherished as canvases.

The seven friends--ranging from age 14 to 20--were riding in the open bed of a pickup truck when it was struck by an alleged drunk driver on the Long Beach Freeway. The impact thrust the truck over a four-foot-high retaining wall, spilling the passengers as it plunged into a railroad yard below. Only the driver and a 16-year-old girl seated beside him survived.

“I don’t know why God punishes people like this,” fellow tagger Oscar Perez said Saturday, as he struggled to keep his composure. “A lot of people want to gang-bang, but we focus on just being together as one, trying to keep out of trouble.”

Perez was among dozens of taggers, relatives and friends who poured into a La Puente mini-mall parking lot Saturday to pay an emotional tribute to their dead friends. Hugging each other and sobbing, sometimes beyond control, they collected donations and washed cars to help pay for seven funerals many of them still could not comprehend.

“I am hoping it is a dream and I will wake up,” said Roy Sirisuk, 15, who figured the group had raised $1,200 by midafternoon, “enough money for two coffins.”

Talk there was mostly of the accident, the heartache and the sense of family the crew has brought to taggers’ lives, many of which have been troubled. Perez has a tattoo on his left shoulder bearing the name of his brother, Ramon, who was killed in a drive-by shooting. Others spoke of arrests, hard-luck job searches and spotty school attendance.

Known as FBI, the crew was founded about three years ago by Chinkosky and several others who were killed in the crash. Members said the initials stand alternately for Far Beyond Insanity, Far Beyond Imagination and Fully Brown and Insane.

T-shirts on Saturday listed the ‘tags’ of six dead youths--Trens, Redi, Chubs, Fats, Steer and Zerek. It was unclear whether the seventh victim, Misty Gray, was a member of the crew. Members of the crew posed for television cameras behind a large particle board sign, painted in bright red letters, “In Memory of FBI.”

Although tagging is illegal and scorned as a blight by many in Los Angeles, several FBI members defended it as their only source of self-esteem. In addition to the park meetings, the group convenes regularly at a Hacienda Heights recreational club, and individual members with troubles at home often take refuge at the La Puente home of Albert Castanon, 14, who was killed in the accident.

“It was family, love, tagging, everything,” said Wendy Coss, 15.

Some parents of the victims insisted Saturday that their children were not taggers, but Melendez and others said the youths were simply afraid to talk about their activities. Melendez said many of the younger taggers often confided in Chinkosky like a big brother or father.

“It was like a small family,” Melendez said. “Jesus wouldn’t give it up. He loved it. They were his closest friends.”

Authorities found spray-paint cans near the tangled wreckage of the pickup truck, but friends say the group was not on a tagging expedition at the time of the accident. One tagger said the cans were primer for touching up the truck. The nine friends, he said, were on their way home from the pier in Redondo Beach, where they had played video games.

One FBI member, who only identified himself as Alex, said Pedro Hidalgo, the driver of the pickup truck, picked up six of his passengers at the Castanon home about 8:30 p.m. Thursday. Alex said he decided not to join the others because of a job interview scheduled early the next morning.

Alex said Hidalgo called him from his hospital bed at 3:30 a.m. Friday to tell him of the accident. Hidalgo, 20, was listed in fair condition Saturday at County-USC Medical Center with cuts and bruises over much of his body. A hospital spokeswoman said he declined requests to be interviewed.

“The other homeboys are dead,” Hidalgo said in the early morning conversation. When he got out of the truck, Hidalgo told Alex, “I started seeing all of these dead bodies.”

Dead in the crash were Chinkosky, 20, of San Gabriel; Castanon, 14, of La Puente; Gray, 14, of Azusa; Victor Carsi, 18, of Baldwin Park; Reyes David Frausto, 19, of La Puente; Gerardo Alonzo Lopez Jr., 14, of La Puente, and Freddy Gutierrez, 14, of Hacienda Heights.

Alex said he then broke the news to the families of three of the dead taggers.

“We aren’t hoodlums--these guys were like brothers,” Alex said. “We all care for each other. Many of us don’t get any support from our parents.”

Members said they will continue the carwashes for several days, although some plan to take a break--possibly as early as today--to contribute to a more fitting tribute to their friends.

They are seeking permission from the Hacienda Heights club to paint a mural proclaiming in large letters, “Rest in Peace.”