2 Teen-Agers Arrested in Race Killings

Two teen-age members of a Laotian gang have been arrested on suspicion of murder in a racially motivated shooting attack last month that killed three Latino youths and left three others severely wounded, Long Beach police said Thursday.

Witnesses said the victims--all males ages 15 to 19--were members of dance clubs who drove from Los Angeles to attend a birthday party and were unaware of the lethal rivalry between Latino and Asian gangs in the Long Beach area.

The suspects were identified “through countless hours of running down tips and leads,” said Long Beach Police Sgt. Jim Bisetti of the task force his department formed with the FBI.

Bisetti said one of the suspects, 16, was arrested at his home last Friday on an outstanding warrant linking him to an unrelated crime.

“He was brought in and questioned,” Bisetti said. “He made statements linking himself and his partner to the shootings.”

Police said they spotted the other suspect, 17, near Atlantic Boulevard and 20th Street in Long Beach about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday and took him into custody without incident.

“These are absolutely the two shooters in the case,” Bisetti said.

“These are very big arrests,” said Cpl. Josef Levy, a Police Department spokesman.

Because of their ages, the suspects’ identities were not made public.

The younger boy was being held at the Los Padrinos juvenile detention facility after his arraignment Wednesday on three counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. The district attorney’s office said the older boy, who was being held at the Long Beach city jail, will be arraigned today or Monday.

Police believe that the May 15 attack was in retaliation for the shooting deaths of two Cambodian American gang members five days earlier and was part of a continuing interracial gang war that has raged through several Long Beach neighborhoods for the past five years.

According to witnesses, Justino (Pancho) Rodriguez, 22; Angel Alvarez, 18; Juan Luis Figueroa, 14; his older brother, Jose Figueroa, and two teen-age friends went to the Latino birthday party near 12th Street and Lewis Avenue the evening of May 15 to hand out flyers inviting the party-goers to a dance days later in Los Angeles.

Witnesses said an Asian gang member may have telegraphed the attack when he drove up to the open-air party, got out of his car with his face masked with a bandanna, and waved a handgun at the crowd of about 100 dancers. Although the party-goers and the gunman exchanged shouted taunts, no shots were fired.

While most of the dancers were afraid to leave the party, the six young men from Los Angeles were unaware of the violent rivalry between the Asian and Latino gangs in Long Beach, the witnesses said.

As the six young men began to walk to their car, two attackers, clad in black, stepped into the street and calmly opened fire, the witnesses said.

“It was like the old gangster movies with all the bodies lying in the street and in the car,” said Mariana Richard, who lives nearby. “It was a bloody massacre.”

Rodriguez, Alvarez and Juan Figueroa fell to the pavement, mortally wounded. Jose Figueroa and the two other teen-agers were wounded but are recovering.