THE SAN MARINO TRAGEDY : Denial Is Prevalent in Affluent Communities : Such enclaves, not wanting to air their ‘dirty linen,’ seek to maintain a positive image. But not admitting there’s a gang problem can be a double-edged sword.

Robert C. Gayl, who sits on the San Marino Unified School Board, doubts there are gang members in his affluent residential community, where the average home sells for $400,000.

“If there . . . was a gang problem at the high school, we would be dealing with it forthrightly,” Gayl asserts.

Ditto for the chief of police.

“There is not a defined gang member at this school; we know this for a fact,” San Marino Police Chief Frank Wills said at a community meeting last week.

The two officials were responding to civic shock and outrage after two youths wielding semiautomatic weapons sprayed gunfire through a high school graduation party earlier this month, killing two teen-agers, wounding seven and plunging this usually quiet and safe city into grief.

Officials in Arcadia--another affluent and high-achieving community--used to say the same things Gayl and Wills do now.

That was before 1990. That year, three students from Arcadia High School were kidnaped and beaten for refusing to join an Asian gang called Red Door. Police broke up the crime ring and arrested five adults and five minors for offenses including kidnaping, assault with a deadly weapon and extortion.

The crimes marked the end of Arcadia’s age of innocence.

“It was our watershed,” recalls Joann E. Steinmeier, an Arcadia school board member who was elected five years ago.

Before the abduction, Steinmeier said, many parents “were definitely in denial. They didn’t want to deal with the fallout. But sometimes you need an event like that to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a problem, and we’d better deal with it head-on.’ ”

Yet Steinmeier says affluent residential enclaves often find it difficult to admit they are vulnerable to the same urban problems that plague the rest of the metropolis.

“In San Marino and Arcadia, we really want to keep that (positive) image in our own minds and in people’s minds. We don’t want to air our dirty linen,” Steinmeier says.

Referring to the San Marino officials, he adds: “I can understand why they don’t want to admit this is happening to kids in their community. Arcadia generally doesn’t like negative press. It doesn’t do wonders for the Chamber of Commerce or for real-estate sales. But it’s a double-edged sword, because if you don’t recognize it and deal with it, you’re never going to get a handle on it.”

Despite the protestations of civic leaders and local police in San Marino, students at the community’s high school said there are some gang members among the students, albeit very few. And a law enforcement source close to the investigation of the party slayings said this week that adult Asian gang leaders are recruiting students at San Marino High School.

Those methods are similar to revelations that rocked Arcadia last year, when police discovered a student extortion and assault-for-hire ring at Arcadia High in which teens worked under the supervision of three adults with ties to Asian gangs. Up to 35 youths were believed to be involved, but police only had enough evidence to arrest 11.

Arcadia officials said some of the adult ringleaders came from other parts of the San Gabriel Valley to recruit students into gang activities.

Arcadia Police Capt. Dave Hinig says civic leaders throughout the San Gabriel Valley should keep one thing in mind: “Any community with a significant Asian population is going to have people trying to recruit Asian (youths) into gangs, whether it’s in the schools or whether they go to where these kids study or play video games.”

Contrary to the stereotype of the tattooed, low-achieving delinquent, many Asian gang members are good students, Hinig says. They come from affluent families. They don’t appear motivated by financial gain. And they are extremely mobile, willing to travel miles to recruit, attend parties, scrap with rival gangs.

Some who counsel both victims and perpetrators of gang violence wonder whether there has been enough counseling of troubled adolescents after the June 5 murders.

Glenn Masuda, a psychologist who works with teen-agers at the Rosemead-based Asian Pacific Family Center, said his clinic offered its services to school officials at South Pasadena and San Marino.

“They indicated they have internal services, and we haven’t been contacted since,” Masuda says.

School officials in both districts said their crisis intervention counselors meet with students as necessary to discuss problems. Many students on both campuses took advantage of these services after the shootings to talk through their concerns and emotions, officials said.

But another counselor, who didn’t want to be named, said he had the impression that San Marino school officials want to downplay any potential problems.

“They’re trying to portray a certain kind of image,” the counselor said. “I don’t know if they’re worried that it’s going to drive down property values or what, but I think somebody is very heavily invested in maintaining the idea that . . . there’s no problem.”

But Rosa Zee, the newest San Marino school board member and its only Asian American, says her community is well aware of the danger of Asian gangs.

“We have to open our eyes--nowhere is safe--and if we deny that we’d be stupid. Like every parent, I’m concerned. These things move fast, and we have to be very careful. We can’t say we’re immune.”

Times Staff Writer Vicki Torres contributed to this story.