Boy Slain in Carjack Attempt : Crime: The 11-year-old’s cousin is wounded as he drives away from assailants.

When Jojuan Avenido, 11, jumped into the car for an evening drive with his cousin, Landry Wright, no one gave it a second thought. After all, the energetic youngster was savoring his last days of his summer vacation.

But about 10:20 Wednesday night, as Wright, 21, and Jojuan waited at a red light, two gunmen approached the car, one on each side, and ordered them to get out.

Wright sped from the South-Central intersection, but the gunmen opened fire, blasting out the windows of his 1982 Oldsmobile. Wright, who was wounded in the shoulder, drove six blocks to a friend’s house before realizing that his cousin had been shot in the head. Jojuan died before help could arrive.

Wright was taken to Martin Luther King-Drew Medical Center, where he was treated and released.

“I don’t know anything short of coward to describe it,” Lt. Sergio Robleto, who commands the South Bureau Homicide Division, said Thursday. “I can’t imagine someone looking at that young baby’s face and killing him. It’s offensive to anything that’s civilized.”

Homicide investigators consider the incident an attempted carjacking. They speculate that the gunmen may have been seeking to steal Wright’s car for its expensive wheel rims, which might have been worth more than the car itself.

Police said the shooting was one of three incidents in the same area within a two-hour span Wednesday night.

An hour before Jojuan and Wright were shot, a carjacking took place at the same Central Avenue-Century Boulevard intersection. And about 11 p.m., at 106th Street and Central Avenue, a drive-by gunman fired at a crowd standing near the taped-off crime scene where Wright had driven his car.

Police chased down the gunman’s speeding vehicle, made at least one arrest and found a semiautomatic rifle, Robleto said. No one was hurt.

“It was a busy night,” he said.

At the news conference, Robleto asked the public for help in solving the slaying of the 11-year-old boy. “We know there were people out there who saw things,” he said. “We need their cooperation in solving this.”

He said police are looking for the owner of a white 1980s Ford van with a blue oval insignia on it. The descriptions of cars used in such robberies are sketchy, Robleto said, because the attackers usually approach from behind.

“They drive up with their lights on and you can’t see,” Robleto said. “They know what they are doing.” He asked anyone with information to call police at (213) 237-1310.

Helen Allen, Jojuan’s mother, talked about the loss of her son at the South Bureau homicide headquarters and appealed to the public for help.

“Anyone who might have seen it, they may be scared, but they should come forward and say something,” she said. “I would.”

“This hurt my heart,” said Allen, groping for words to explain her pain. “I screamed and screamed.”

She described her son as “a good kid, a nice boy. He loved to fish and he loved the outdoors.” She said her son and his cousin, Wright, “both loved arcade games and spent lots of time together.”

Of the assailants, she said quietly: “I don’t know, I don’t feel anything for them. I wish they were dead.”

She said it would take time to deal with the loss of her only child. He would have entered sixth grade Monday, and she had planned to take him shopping Thursday.

“I just washed all my son’s clothes and now I got to look at them. I have to look at his bed,” she said.