Gunshots Again Rake Venice; 2 Youths Die : Violence: Slain teen-agers were not believed to be gang members. But police say they may have been targeted as Latinos in a gang war that has pitted their ethnic group against blacks.

Two teen-agers were killed and two others were wounded Friday morning when gunmen in a van opened fire in the Venice area--yet another bloody episode in a community where a war between black and Latino gangs has claimed about 15 lives over the past year.

Though police did not know the motive for the attack, the case was turned over to anti-gang investigators who have been tracking the gang war. The victims--none of whom were believed to be gang members--are Latino. The three suspects--who police said fired at least five shots into the car using weapons that included a shotgun and handgun--were described as blacks.

All four victims were students at Dorsey High School, according to police and school officials. The dead were identified as Jose Tizcareno, 18, of Venice and Jose Alvarez, 17, of the Mid-Wilshire area. Rafael Campoy, 17, and Javier Lopez, 18, both of the Mid-Wilshire area, suffered minor gunshot wounds to the arms, shoulder and face. They were treated at Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital and released.

Tizcareno, who lived near the spot where he died, was described by Dorsey officials as a bright and promising student who was popular among his classmates. He was to graduate Thursday.

His sister, 15-year-old Mayra Tizcareno, stared at the blood-streaked scene on Venice Boulevard and sobbed.

“They killed my brother. He wasn’t even a cholo . He never even dressed like a gang member,” she said. “He had a job, had everything. He was doing something good.”

The attack took place a block from Venice High School, but the school remained open. The neighborhood around the school has been the site of past shootings and side streets are barricaded during school hours to prevent drive-by attacks. Police said Friday night that about 100 extra officers will be patrolling Venice-area streets this weekend as a result of the rash of violence.

They said the four victims were in their car after shopping at a pager store on Venice Boulevard when several gunmen pulled up in a van and opened fire.

Witnesses ran out to discover a grisly scene. On the street near a red Hyundai with its rear windows shot out, the driver was on his back, lying dead in a pool of blood. The passenger who was killed sat seat-belted in the back of the car. The other two passengers, also sitting in the car, “looked stunned,” said Richard Simonian, one of the first people on the scene.

Police were investigating whether the shootings might have been retaliation for an incident hours earlier in which a black man was wounded in Venice’s Oakwood neighborhood during a drive-by attack carried out by gunmen described as Latinos. They are also investigating whether the attack might have been intended to avenge the killing of a black gang member from the Wilshire area whose funeral was held earlier Friday.

About six hours after the attack, the van believed to have been used by the assailants was found on a street in the Oakwood area, said Police Sgt. Bruce Berg. “It was not a stolen vehicle and it is being checked for fingerprints and other leads,” he said Friday night.

Increasingly, victims of the Venice violence have been unconnected to gangs, feeding speculation that they have been targeted because of their race or ethnicity.

The shootings Friday came only three days after six people were injured when gunmen in a truck sprayed a high school graduation party near Venice’s Penmar Recreation Center. None of the victims in that attack were gang members but police and others said they may have been randomly chosen in the back-and-forth gang war, which has been centered mainly in the Oakwood neighborhood half a mile away.

Four victims in that attack were Latino. The three masked attackers were described as black men.

“It’s been tit for tat--the blacks shooting Hispanics, shooting blacks, shooting Hispanics,” said Lt. Otis Dobine, who commands detectives in the Pacific division of the Los Angeles Police Department. He said the victims in Friday’s fatal incident “might have (been) mistaken for gang members.”

The wearying violence has left fearful Venice residents feeling besieged and has disrupted normal life.

“It’s been real hot around here for the past six to eight months,” said a teen-ager who declined to give his name. “You’ve got to watch your back all the time. I can’t even drive down Lincoln Boulevard anymore. If you get stuck at a red light, you’re history. These guys don’t ask any questions.”

Inside a holistic health clinic, several chalk circles marked the carpet where stray bullet fragments from the shooting near the school landed Friday. Therapist Bill Domke was inside when one bullet crashed through the clinic’s front window and others shattered the base of the front door. “It’s just time to stop this senseless killing,” he said.