Gang Carnage Yields Few Clues

By HECTOR TOBAR

Aug. 30, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

It seems as though everyone knows who killed 18-year-old Edgar Jauregui. And nobody knows.

Jauregui was gunned down last month, one more victim in the bloody rampage of gang violence that has claimed at least 15 lives in an insular, two-square-mile patch of South-Central since November, including a 9-year-old Orange County boy whose family wandered into a gang attack.

Although investigators say they have few concrete leads in the Jauregui case, one of Edgar’s relatives said he knows the killer’s nickname. Some neighborhood residents recognized the gunman.

One person even went looking for the supposed killer. “Somebody told me they saw the car in Huntington Park,” said the middle-aged man, who asked that his name not be published. “But by the time we got there, it was gone.”

Detectives have arrested only a handful of suspects in the 15 shootings, which have taken place in the unincorporated community of Florence and a slice of southeast Los Angeles. Most of the dead were gang members.

Detectives say they know of few places where so many deaths have struck such a small area so quickly.

Like other conflicts between rival Southland gangs, the battle between 38th Street and Florencia 13 bears a tragic similarity to a full-blown civil war. Some “civilians” have been caught in the cross-fire of handguns and assault rifles. As is the case in many long-running gang feuds, the causes of the conflict remain murky, hidden in a swirl of rumor and gossip.

The shooting of 9-year-old Hector Martinez was clearly among the more brazen attacks.

On the night of Aug. 3, suspected gang members opened fire with an assault rifle on a car with four children in the back seat, killing Hector and wounding his 6-year-old brother and both their parents.

The Buena Park family had returned to the neighborhood to retrieve a broken-down car.

“When you see these things building, you know it’s just a matter of time before a child got shot, or a mother,” said Deputy Carlos Ponce, a gang investigator with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “You’re rolling the dice.”

The Martinez family returned to Mexico City last week, after an Aug. 16 memorial service, to bury their oldest son. Friends said the Martinezes planned to stay in Mexico for several weeks before returning to California.

Weeks after the most recent shootings, makeshift shrines still sprout from the sidewalks where Edgar and Hector were killed, flowers in vases and votive candles that burn for hours in the moonlight and under a hot sun. Friends have left farewell notes. Some spray-painted graffiti messages that begin “R.I.P.”

The police and sheriff’s investigators who arrive at the scene of these and other shootings are often treated to a chilly reception. Few are eager to cooperate with them.

“You know how those neighborhoods are,” one sheriff’s detective said. “When the guns go popping off, people run and don’t see anything.”

Detectives in the Jauregui and Martinez killings say they are stumped by the apparent lack of witnesses--despite the fact that, in the Martinez case at least, the shooting may have taken place in front of a crowd of about 20 people.

“We don’t have anybody from the area who’s willing to come forward and give us details,” said Mike Scott, the sheriff’s detective investigating the Martinez shooting. “It seems to be a running battle between these two gangs.”

Scott said he would protect the identity of anyone who stepped forward with information on the case.

“It’s going to take some mother, some father, some sister that can relate” to the Martinez family and its loss, Scott said. “Let’s think about this 9-year-old kid who was sitting in the back doing nothing, for crying out loud.”

The troubles between the two gangs began, authorities believe, during a seven-day span in late November and early December, when nine people were killed, all of them teenagers and young adults. Five were gunned down in the LAPD’s Newton Division, and four on a single block of East 59th Place in Florence.

Among those killed were a man in a wheelchair and two 18-year-olds gunned down in one shooting on the 4100 block of South Ascot Avenue.

A 15-year-old victim, Luis Benitez, who police said was not a gang member, was shot Dec. 2 while standing in front of a home on East 33rd Street; the family had gone there to collect the rent from their tenants.

Elvia Benitez said her son’s attackers came in a large pickup truck about 9 p.m. They shouted out the standard gang challenge: “Where are you from?” Her son said, “I’m not from anywhere,” but then one of the young men in the pickup yelled, “Shoot him!”

“We haven’t heard a thing from the police,” Elvia Benitez said in Spanish, holding a picture of her son, who looked much younger than his 15 years. “It isn’t fair that my son dies and no one is held responsible.”

Besides those killed, dozens more have been wounded. In just the first month of the conflict, sheriff’s officials counted 15 gang-related assaults in Florence.

There are several theories about the conflict’s origins, said gang investigator Ponce. One version has the rival gangs fighting a turf battle, perhaps over drug sales. Another has the conflict starting over a “personal matter,” such as a dispute over a girlfriend. “Those are all unconfirmed rumors,” Ponce said. “No one knows for a fact.”

Similar gossip has swirled on the block of well-kept homes in Florence where Edgar was killed last month. One of the few concrete details offered by investigators was this: Days before the shooting, graffiti of the rival 38th Street gang appeared in the neighborhood.

The Jaureguis say they only want Edgar’s killer captured and brought to justice. They offered a $10,000 reward. So far the reward has brought only threats, with the family hearing through the rumor mill that gang members have said, “Maybe they’ll make it $20,000 if we kill his brother.”

Edgar had left behind his gang ties in January, family members said. On the night he was killed, Edgar had brought home a videotaped movie he wanted to see with the family. The family was in the living room watching the movie when Edgar’s father decided he needed to move his truck out of the driveway.

There were two other cars parked behind it, and Edgar offered to move one, family members said. Edgar was making a U-turn at 66th Street and Miramonte Boulevard when his path crossed that of a group of gang members.

The gang members, neighbors said, were planning an attack on a nearby Florencia 13 hangout. They stopped in front of the car Edgar was driving, relatives said. An argument ensued; then one of the assailants produced a weapon and fired at least six times into Edgar’s body.

“Why do the muchachos hate each other like this?” asked Edgar’s mother, Lourdes Aguilar. “We’re all from the same race. We could have been neighbors over in Guadalajara, in Mexico, but here the muchachos hate each other.

“It doesn’t matter if we’re from 38th Street or Watts or East L.A. or wherever,” she continued. “All the mothers are suffering with this.”

The rival gangs live in a community centered on Slauson Avenue, a corner of the city not traveled much by outsiders. Aguilar and others say they are frustrated by the relative inattention of the media to the killings.

Elvia Benitez said City Councilwoman Rita Walters offered a $25,000 reward in December in connection with her son’s killing, but there was scant media notice.

Told that at least 14 other young men and children have been killed in the conflict that claimed her son, she said: “You see. They’re trying to do away with everyone.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Gang War

A spate of gang violence has left 15 people dead since November in a two-square-mile area that includes the unincorporated community of Florence and a slice of southeast Los Angeles. Most of the dead were members of rival gangs, 38th Street and Florencia 13; others were innocent bystanders.

* Nov. 26, 1996

1. Carlos Vargas, age 18

2. Juan Ortiz, 18

* Nov. 29

3. Gilberto Mendoza, 22

* Dec.1

4. Felipe Vazquez, 24

5. Enrique Fajardo, 27

6. Alejandro Torrez, 15

7. Francisco Ruiz, 22

* Dec.1

8. Alfredo Mendoza, 22