Brazen Pier Area Killer Has Huntington Shaken : Crime: Residents fearful of rising violence. Man who calmly gunned down two on sidewalk remains at large.

As police searched Friday for the killer of two young men found shot to death near the Huntington Beach Pier, fear and anger swept through the trendy downtown district that the city has spent millions of dollars to redevelop.

No one really is certain what spurred the deadly confrontation, but by about 10:15 p.m. Thursday, Chen Cosmo Blanchard, 23, and Kenny Paul Summer, 23, both of Huntington Beach, were lying dead on the sidewalk on the southeastern corner of Main and Orange Streets, a few feet away from the entrance to Great Western Sanitary Supplies and just a few blocks away from the pier.

Police said Friday that a long-haired man shot them without provocation, then walked away calmly. But some witnesses offered a different account, saying the gunman got into an argument with the two men and then shot each of them three times before fleeing in a car.

Police said they do not believe that the shootings were gang-related, and one city official who did not want to be identified said it appeared that the shooter was upset at the two victims because he saw them urinating outside on a wall. They got into a shoving match, the official said, then the man left the scene only to return a short while later with a gun.

By Friday morning, the scene of the crime--still cordoned off--was the focal point of interest for bike riders, early morning strollers and other onlookers, as Huntington Beach residents struggled to piece together the night’s unusually brazen violence.

Mike Stephan, co-owner of the sanitary supplies store, watched from inside his business as people milled about outside, and he pondered what he believes are the root causes of the killing. “I could see it coming,” he said. “At night, gangs come here from other areas and this gets ugly--you wouldn’t want to bring your family down here.

“I was surprised (this type of crime) didn’t happen earlier,” he said.

His words were echoed by other residents who lamented the changes in the downtown area, worrying about the large crowds of youngsters who gather there in the evenings and about the crime and violence that they seem to attract near the pier.

While police said the crime rate in the downtown area appears to actually have fallen in recent years, some residents said their neighborhoods seem more threatening to them today.

“I’m an old fart, I’m 51, but I’ve been coming down here since I was 4,” said Charlotte Melson, who began summering in Huntington Beach in 1949 and moved there in 1976. “I’ve watched the town grow from oil city to the mess it is now. . . . I never in my life dreamed I’d have to worry about bullets flying downtown.”

Melson and her husband stroll Main Street a couple times each week, walking their dogs, visiting the Native American crafts store and stopping for coffee at the new Starbuck’s. But a few months ago their 27-year-old son was jumped a couple blocks from their home. More recently, she and her husband were sharing some sweets at the Sugar Shack when they witnessed a hit-and-run accident among the ubiquitous cruisers that clog Main Street.

The area “has become more popular, which is fine. We do need the business,” said Melson. “The problem is I’ve noticed more hostility. Instead of people being nice, saying, ‘Have a good day,’ they’re cussing you out. . . .

“There are too many liquor licenses and too many bars. We’ve gotten too popular. We’re drawing too many degenerates, gangs, bad elements, vagrants. We need solutions,” she said.

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Police Sgt. Mike Corcoran said Thursday’s brutal shootings “are nothing like the kind of things we are used to seeing or dealing with in our city. This is just a reflection of what’s going on throughout our society.”

Huntington Beach Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg said the double slaying is very unusual for the city, which historically has had a low homicide rate.

“We only had three homicides throughout the city in 1993,” he said. “A double homicide such as this is unusual in any part of the city, much less in the downtown area.”

Lowenberg said he did not immediately have precise statistics, but he said that overall crime has been lower in the city’s downtown area since redevelopment began about 10 years ago.

Similarly, Huntington Beach Councilman Ralph Bauer said Friday that crime appears to have become less of a problem in the downtown area since redevelopment. Bauer said that prior to redevelopment, the city’s downtown was a haven for drug users, prostitutes and runaways.

“Downtown is better than it used to be,” he said. “The crime rate in the downtown is similar to, but certainly not worse, than any other area of the city.”

Bauer, however, said that like some local residents, he too is concerned that there may be too many new bars in the city’s redeveloped downtown. The shootings took place near a bar, and some city officials said the victims may have been inside the tavern just before the confrontation.

“We get some impression that the people affected (in the shooting) had been in one of the bars,” Bauer said. “I frankly think the city should take a good hard look at the number of liquor licenses downtown. They may be a little excessive. I think this is something the city should get with the ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) people and discuss.”

Some say the combination of a good-looking downtown area and bars are attracting a young but undesirable crowd.

“Ever since they remodeled this area, a lot of young people have come here, many of them gang-types who just hang around, a lot of them at the bars, and that’s a pretty bad mix,” said Steve Chumley, who has lived in Huntington Beach for nine years and stopped by the scene of the shootings Friday on his bicycle route.

“This is crazy. This used to be a safe town,” he said.

Many old-timers say they feel like the town is being overrun by gangs. That might have triggered widespread rumors Thursday that the victims were skinheads.

Police Chief Lowenberg said it is “too early to tell” whether the shooting was gang related.

Asked if the incident may involve so-called “skinheads,” Lowenberg responded, “We have no hard evidence, but there is a bar close to the shooting area that has a reputation for that type of patrons.”

“Skinheads” generally have shaved heads and profess white supremacy. Some so-called skinheads wear para-military clothing and carry Nazi emblems and memorabilia, and Huntington Beach has historically been a magnet for skinhead gatherings.

Corcoran of the Huntington Beach Police Department said the victims did wear “very short hair” and had tattoos emblazoned on their bodies, “but we can’t say they’re skinheads just because of that.”

In the meantime, police officers and members of the volunteer Search and Rescue Team of Huntington Beach distributed flyers throughout downtown with a drawing of the killer’s likeness and a description. The flyers asked anyone with information on the case to contact detectives Chuck Thomas or Dale Mason at (714) 375-5066 or 536-5951.

Police are looking for a bespectacled, long-haired man with dark complexion, between 5-feet, 6-inches and 5-feet, 9-inches tall and wearing a dark-colored baseball cap and a knee-length dark coat.

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While police say the deadly attack appeared unprovoked, businessman Jinx Varona, whose Taxi’s bar is less than half a block from the scene of the shooting, said he was present when two young witnesses told police Friday that the man stepped down from a silver Saab Turbo 900 and walked toward two supposed “skinheads.”

The bar owner said the young witnesses claimed an argument ensued and that the man from the Saab then shot the two “skinheads” and jumped back into the car, which was driven away by another man.

The city official, who asked not to be identified, appeared to corroborate parts of this version of events.

“This guy who is being sought walked by an outdoor area where two men were urinating against a wall,” the official said. “The guy had his girlfriend with him, and he complained to the two men. They then got into a dispute, but the two guys finally went back into a bar, and the guy and his girlfriend walked on.

“But apparently this guy later waited for the two men to come out of the bar,” the official said. “Forty-five minutes after the first sidewalk dispute, the two guys came out of the bar, and this man confronted them and shot them.”

Loretta Wolfe, co-chair of the Downtown Residents Assn., said Friday that many downtowners say they remember seeing a man who resembles the police sketch of the suspect in the slaying. She said, however, that no one she knows had pinned a name to the face.

Times staff writer Jodi Wilgoren contributed to this report.