3 Killed, 3 Hurt in Unprovoked Gang Attack

Long Beach police and city officials appealed for calm Monday after Cambodian gang members without provocation--and apparently bent on racial retaliation--shot six Latino youths at close range as they left a party, killing three and wounding three.

Witnesses said the victims, all males between 15 and 19, were members of several Latino dance clubs who drove down from Los Angeles to attend a birthday party Sunday evening and were unaware of the deadly back-and-forth exchange between Latino and predominantly Cambodian American gangs.

“It was like the old gangster movies with all the bodies lying in the street and in the car,” said Marina Richard, who lives nearby and came out after the shooting stopped. “It was a bloody massacre.”

The shooting was the latest in a brutal war between the ethnic gangs that has peaked and waned during the past five years, bringing fear to those who live in the heart of the city.

A police spokesman said the unusually brazen and well-organized attack was in retaliation for a drive-by shooting a week earlier that left two gang members dead. But the targets of the assault at 12th Street and Lewis Avenue were not part of the Latino gang that claims the area as its turf.

“This was a well-thought-out execution, that’s what it was,” spokesman Bob Anderson said. He said it appeared that the gunmen had each been assigned particular victims to shoot. “They had specific targets and they knew exactly what they wanted to do,” he said.

Police and city officials organized several meetings with Cambodian and Latino leaders Monday and saturated the area where the shooting occurred with dozens of police officers, including detectives, traffic officers and others, officials said.

“The real test is what we do and how we respond,” Deputy City Manager Joseph Rouzan Jr. said. The shooting has prompted “a kind of coming together and pulling together of all our resources in the community to abate this problem.”

Deputy Police Chief Jerry Lance said Monday night that he was encouraged after a 90-minute meeting at the Cambodian Business Center with about 40 community representatives.

“These people will go back to their neighborhoods and talk to other people and have everyone talk to their kids,” Lance said. “We asked for this meeting to, number one, seek information on what happened and, two, to get the community involved. . . . We’re the enforcement arm and . . . we’d rather not deal with (racial friction). It’s got to be dealt with starting in the home.”

Although most retaliatory shootings are drive-bys done on the run, the assault Sunday was carried out face to face in front of numerous witnesses. Also, witnesses said that a Cambodian gang member had possibly telegraphed the attack when he and a companion drove up to the open-air party, got out, masked his face with a bandanna and flashed a handgun at the crowd of about 100 dancers. Although the dancers and the man with the gun shouted at each other, no shots were fired.

One of those attending the party, Francisco Vasquez, 14, said that after the gunman walked by, the dancers were wary of leaving the party, which was in the rear parking lot of one of the numerous run-down, stucco apartment buildings that line the crowded streets of the neighborhood adjacent to the Anaheim Street corridor.

“These guys didn’t know about the war going on between the Mexicans and the Cambodians because they were from L.A.,” Vasquez said.

Several people in a group, who witnesses said were members of numerous quebradita -style dance clubs based in South-Central Los Angeles, left the party about 8:30 p.m. and had reached their parked car when the gunmen, armed with handguns and possibly assault rifles, approached from the rear.

At least two and perhaps four or more attackers, clad all in black and appearing to be between 15 and 20, began firing calmly from the sidewalk and the street as their victims approached, witnesses told police. The gunmen had scattered by the time police and paramedics arrived to find two dead youths in the front seat of the blue Toyota Corolla, four wounded youths on the ground and trails of blood running down the street.

One victim, who a witness said appeared to be about 13 years old, had been shot in the arm and the side and was lying in the street, yelling, “I can’t breathe! I can’t make it!”

The shooting highlighted the difficulties facing Long Beach city officials. An energetic redevelopment program has transformed downtown Long Beach, a few miles away, into a vibrant area of shops, restaurants and nightclubs. Another effort is under way to revitalize the waterfront area and a $111-million expansion of the city’s Convention Center is set to reopen in October.

While the downtown is coming alive, so is the increasingly violent standoff between poor Latino and Cambodian youths competing for turf and status as well as drug profits.

Violent crime in Long Beach is on the rise but is lower than in many other similar-sized cities. And crime in the redevelopment area of downtown is low and security is tight, with police patrolling on bicycle and on foot. But not far away, in the area known as the Anaheim Street corridor, gang violence between Cambodians and Latinos has been going on for five years.

Since 1979, nearly 50,000 Cambodians have moved into the area, which has long been home to Latinos and African Americans. Although Cambodians are still in the minority, they have managed to transform the sector by establishing businesses and social services agencies. In the process, rivalries have developed, especially among youths.

“The tension between the Mexicans and the Cambodians has been an ongoing thing,” said Chula Samyuth, 17, a junior at Polytechnic High School nearby. “The Cambodians have been picked on a lot in high school because they are small and they don’t speak fluent English.”

Molly Keobunta, 15, a Polytechnic sophomore, said the racial and gang tensions remain outside the school’s doors for the most part. “There’s no real problems here,” she said. “It’s just outside the school between the gangsters that there’s problems.”

Most recently, the tit-for-tat had claimed at least two lives before Sunday. Vikchai Limpung, 19, and Ath Amnat, 13, were killed by suspected Latino gang members a week earlier. Later, two Latino gang members were wounded as a pay back.

Anderson said police have not identified any suspects in either the shooting Sunday or the one a week earlier.

Police established a hot line and people were being urged to call with any information about the shooting or rumors of further retaliations. The number is (310) 570-7370.

Several party-goers said they knew which dancing clubs the victims were affiliated with but did not know their names.

Quebradita is a type of Mexican country dance that looks something like the Texas two-step, with fast and furious footwork and deep dips of one’s partner, close to the dance floor. The dance style has become increasingly popular in recent years and clubs compete for popularity.

Police said they had been able to identify only one of the three killed. Two bodies had yet to be claimed by relatives, Anderson said.

The two who died at the scene were males, ages 15 and 19. A 16-year-old boy had been hit twice in the head and several times in the body but was alive at the scene. He died at St. Mary Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Wendy Kuran said.

A 13-year-old boy who was shot in the abdomen and the arm was in guarded condition after surgery, Kuran said.

Two others wounded in the attack were taken to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. Jose Figueroa, 19, was released several hours later and a 13-year-old boy who had been wounded in the abdomen and arm was in fair condition but might require additional surgery, a hospital spokesman said.

Times correspondent Emily Adams contributed to this story.