Music Was the Thing for Victim of Gang Attack : Violence: Dance clubs organize <i> quebradita </i> party to help pay for funerals of three slain youths. Police continue search for suspects.

The music was the thing for 22-year-old Justino (Pancho) Rodriquez.

The thumping bass line and the soaring trumpets of banda struck something deep inside the South-Central Los Angeles man and inspired him and his younger brother to buy deejay equipment to provide music for dance parties. The dance of choice at such parties was la quebradita, the fast-stepping country dance that has become wildly popular among young Latinos in Los Angeles in the past four years.

But now, for Rodriquez, the music is silent; he and two other dance enthusiasts are dead.

On Sunday, Rodriquez drove to a Long Beach birthday party with five others, planning to distribute flyers regarding a dance that his quebradita club was promoting along with several others. As they left the party they were shot at close range by four or more Cambodian gang members, police said. Three were wounded.

“He loved the music,” said his brother, Bulmaro Rodriquez, 24, in a tearful interview. “He just wanted to make the dance so popular.”

Justino and Bulmaro Rodriquez and two other brothers had come to Los Angeles from the Mexican state of Morelo four years ago to earn money to build a house for their mother and to send their younger siblings to school. During the day, Justino worked as a gardener. At night, he organized the weekend parties, drawing up playlists and making telephone calls to stir up interest. Other dancers would drop by the house across from Locke High School to talk about upcoming events.

Among those who had become excited about the traditional Mexican country dance were Juan Luis Figueroa, 14, and Angel Alvarez, 18. They also were dead when the shooting stopped Sunday evening near 12th Street and Lewis Avenue. Figueroa’s older brother, Jose, lay wounded. So did two other teen-agers.

Jose Figueroa was released from the hospital Sunday. A 17-year-old youth remained in fair condition at St. Mary Medical Center on Tuesday. A 13-year-old boy was to have been released Tuesday night from Long Beach Memorial Medical Center with some paralysis of his arm.

“Angel . . . was a good brother,” said Oscar Alvarez, 14, of his slain brother.

Angel Alvarez, who moved to Los Angeles with his parents and three brothers from Mexico about four years ago, had been part of the dance craze for about two years, Oscar Alvarez said in an interview.

Police in Long Beach said they believe the attack was in retaliation for the May 10 shooting deaths of two Cambodian American gang members and is part of a 5-year-old interracial gang war that has terrorized neighborhoods in the heart of the city. On Monday, police saturated the area near the shooting and asked police gang details to come on duty early.

On Tuesday, police were conducting interviews and trying to create composite drawings of suspects. Although the shootings occurred before witnesses, police said they had conflicting accounts of how many attackers were involved and how they were armed.

Also on Tuesday, police changed the telephone number of a 24-hour hot line established to take tips about Sunday’s shooting and other matters related to gang hostilities. The new number is (310) 570-7127, department spokeswoman Karen Kerr said.

At a City Council meeting, Councilwoman Doris Topsy-Elvord, whose district border includes the street where the deaths occurred, noted that none of the 26 police officers assigned to the department’s gang task force was of Asian descent. None of the 31 officers assigned to the department’s narcotics detail, which is also participating in the investigation, is of Asian descent either.

“If we are going to get in and get information . . . we need to at least have people who can . . . get into the area,” she said.

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Meanwhile, dance clubs in Los Angeles began organizing a quebradita party for next weekend to help the families of Rodriquez and the others raise money for funerals. KLAX (97.9), which has become the most popular radio station in the city largely on the strength of its banda format, has agreed to help promote the party.

Typically, such parties are held in houses and the hosts charge $2 to $10 for admission. But Juan Carlos Hidalgo, a KLAX deejay whose morning ratings top those of talk show host Howard Stern, said the killings show the need for tighter dance party security.

“It’s not a good idea to have the parties in the houses because of the dangers,” Hidalgo said. “The parties should be in halls and the person who makes the party should hire security.”

Hidalgo said repesentatives of Rodriquez’s club, Aritmo del Techno, had come to the station before to record announcements about their parties. “They were very calm guys and they just wanted to get involved with more young people,” Hidalgo said.

He said it is typical for club members to attend parties held by other clubs and to invite those clubs to attend their parties. That is what Rodriquez and the others were doing in a gang-ridden part of Long Beach.

“We have to continue with this idea of promoting the clubs as a way for the kids to get out of gangs,” Hidalgo said. “But it’s hard to promote the parties because we don’t know” if the neighborhoods where they are being held are safe.

Oscar Saenz, president of Club Super Bandito, is organizing the fund-raiser to help pay for the funerals. He said that “we’re going to be there . . . whatever happens” to Rodriquez’s club.

“He didn’t dress like a gangster,” Saenz said. “There was no reason for him to be shot.”