Family Mourns Brothers Killed in Shooting : Violence: One of the two would have turned 13 today. Police say the attack was gang-related, but survivors dispute them.

At the yellow house in Compton where brothers Bobby and Mario Millan lived, Halloween decorations fluttered weakly in the breeze Monday.

Black and orange pennants dangled over the gutter. In the front yard, a few strands of fake cobwebs clung to a cactus. Nearby stood a gray cardboard tombstone on which a message had been painted in black letters: “R.I.P.”

The house, usually filled with the chatter of six children, was quiet Monday. No one was home. Instead of preparing for a happy Halloween, the family spent the day at the mortuary--preparing to bury the brothers, ages 12 and 14, who were killed late Saturday by assault weapon shots fired from a car that was chasing their sports utility vehicle.

Compton police said the attack in which the brothers were killed was gang-related. Three surviving occupants in the truck sharply disputed that assertion.

The brothers had no gang affiliation, according to neighbors, coaches and relatives. They were killed, according to their Pony League coach, 48-year-old Henderson Carter, for a sadly familiar reason: “Wrong place. Wrong time. It’s the story of half these kids who get killed down here.”

Added Xochitl Castaneda, 24, a friend of the family: “What can you say? They were good boys. I get chills thinking about it.”

Bobby Millan, who would have turned 13 today, and Mario Millan, 14, were avid baseball players. Bobby was a slick-fielding shortstop, Mario a solid second baseman, and both were “the greatest competitors you’d ever meet,” Carter said.

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Carter had been the boys’ baseball coach for several years, from Little League through Pony League, and he said Monday: “When kids play baseball for me, I try to keep them away from three things: guns, gang activity and drugs.

“If I can get them out of high school, into college, they have a chance to get out and be someone,” Carter said. “This is so sad.”

The brothers--along with their 16-year-old sister Sabrina Millan, her boyfriend and the boyfriend’s younger sister--left a party at 138th Street and Wilmington Avenue late Saturday. Later, they noticed that their truck was being followed by another vehicle, police said.

At the wheel of the truck was 15-year-old Fernando Figueroa. It was not clear Monday whether he had a valid permit to drive; he said the truck was his mother’s vehicle. The Millan home was just a few blocks away.

Figueroa said he turned into a dead end street, then noticed another car. He said he backed out, passing the other car again. After that, he said, he headed off--then noticed that the other car was trailing.

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Sabrina Millan gave the same account, adding: “I heard my brothers screaming, saying they were scared. I told my boyfriend to step on it.”

Both vehicles made another turn. After that, a gunman in the other car began shooting, according to Figueroa and Sabrina Millan.

At Rosecrans and Wilmington avenues, about half a dozen blocks away from the dead end, the others in the vehicle noticed that the brothers, sitting in the back, had been hit. They pulled over and called police at 11:46 p.m.

“Bobby couldn’t talk,” Sabrina said. “He could hardly breathe.”

“Mario was still alive,” Figueroa said. “I grabbed him. He closed his eyes. That’s when he died.”

At 12:08 a.m., the brothers were pronounced dead at the scene. Sabrina Millan, Figueroa and his 13-year-old sister, Yesenia Figueroa, were not hurt.

Compton police said Monday that they believe that the shooting was gang-related because one of the three survivors--they did not say who--had gang ties.

Asked Monday if he or either of the two girls had ties to a gang, Figueroa said: “No, none of us.” Asked why police would make such an assertion, he replied: “I guess because we live on the wrong side of the tracks.”

Police also dismissed as unlikely the suggestion that Figueroa had turned into a dead end because he and the others in the car were lost. “They know the neighborhood,” Capt. Steven Roller said.

Detectives were searching for two young Latino males, Roller said. Investigators believe the attackers were riding in a blue or gray 1980s Buick Regal.

“We had such plans for his birthday,” Sabrina Millan said of her brother, Bobby. “But instead of Halloween, instead of a birthday party, we’re [planning] his funeral.”

Times staff writer Jeff Leeds contributed to this story.