Bullet Ends Football Star’s Journey to a Better Life : Violence: Family and teammates mourn Long Beach City College linebacker Kasun Charles. He had hoped athletics would be a ticket out of his gang-plagued neighborhood.

By all accounts, 21-year-old Kasun Charles had a life full of choices. A star linebacker for Long Beach City College, he was being heavily recruited by football powerhouses across the country.

Football, Charles figured, was a means to a good education and a ticket out of the tough, gang-plagued Wilmington neighborhood where he lived with his grandmother.

The 6-foot-2, 230-pounder with a 3.0 grade-point average kept his distance from those who lived by the gun, pausing only long enough to give them his respect. But sometimes, when you’re cheek-by-jowl with trouble, that’s all it takes to become a victim.

The option Charles had sought so hard to create for himself vanished when he was shot and killed one night last week in a shooting that police said stemmed from ongoing tension between Wilmington’s black and Latino gangs.

He had lived with a tension that surrounds countless young adults struggling to find a higher path in neighborhoods where gang violence is common. Their lives inevitably crisscross with those they grew up with as children, people whose lives are steeped in warfare.

Charles’ funeral Tuesday in San Pedro drew about 600 mourners--a multiethnic collection of neighbors, teammates and others, packed in a small chapel at Green Hills Mortuary.

“I always told him that he could do anything he wanted to do with himself,” said his mother, Irma Irving, who lives in a nearby section of Los Angeles. “It was up to him. He had the choice. He wanted to make something out of himself. Football was only a means to an end. He wanted to be a lawyer.”

It was not clear how Charles died. Police said he and a friend were driving home from the funeral of a slain friend on Nov. 7 when they were confronted by a group of Latino men on Blinn Avenue. An argument escalated into a fight. Then someone pulled a gun and shot Charles, who was black, several times.

Charles and his friend “were driving in a car and stopped and approached these . . . guys and a fight was on,” said Los Angeles Police Detective Roosevelt Joseph. “Why they stopped? We don’t know. The only person who can give us the whole story was the guy (who) was with Charles. He is stating that he doesn’t know why they stopped,” Joseph said.

Charles was gunned down less than four blocks from his home. Not long after the shooting, his mother said, she rushed to the scene and found her son lying in a pool of blood. The police had taped off the area and refused to let her through, she said.

“I tried to get to my boy and the policeman said, ‘It’s just another gang shooting,’ ” Irving said. “I said, ‘That’s not just another shooting. He’s my son.’ ”

Homicide detectives said Charles was not considered a gang member, but his friend has a record of gang involvement. Police have arrested two suspects, but neither is believed to be the gunman.

The shooting sent shock waves through the Long Beach City College campus, where the football team has a 9-1 record.

“The news devastated our team,” said Don Kloppendurg, a defensive coach on the team who recruited Charles to play at the two-year college. “He was a natural leader, one of the most heavily recruited linebackers in the state.”

Over the weekend, the team released some of its emotions in a victory over Mt. San Antonio College with a 38-35 victory. With the players wearing Charles’ number 9 on their helmets, the team increased the possibility of a postseason appearance.

“They spoke with their play,” said Offensive Line Coach Mike Reisbig.

Weighing 180 pounds when he joined the team, Charles put on about 50 pounds through sheer determination and hard work, his coaches said. He became the best player on the team.

“He was the spirit of the team; he knew how to hype everyone up,” said Adrian Sykes, a 21-year-old defensive back. “It’s hard to believe that we’re not going to see him again.”

School officials announced that the Long Beach City College Foundation office was collecting donations for the Kasun Charles Funeral Fund.

Charles’ mother said her son had remained friends with the young men in the run-down neighborhood but had a different style.

“He wanted to make something of himself,” she said. “He wanted a better life for himself.”

At the funeral, one of those young men, Duke Maldonado, 22, remembered Charles as the one on the block who encouraged everyone to go back to school.

“He was a good person,” he said. “He used to clown a lot, but he was always positive.”

His mother remembered that her son loved fishing and snorkeling and enjoyed mountain walks. Most people, she said, remembered his winning smile.

Before his death, she said, he was leaning toward going to USC to finish college. He had received several plane tickets for trips to out-of-state colleges that were recruiting him.

“We were celebrating,” she said. “Everything (was) going just like he wanted it.”

Times correspondent Susan Woodward contributed to this story.