2 Teenagers Killed in Fight With Gang Members

Two young Central Los Angeles men were shot to death and a third was wounded when they were set upon by gang members, police said Friday.

Detectives said the trouble erupted Wednesday on East Manchester Avenue near Central Avenue when gang members asked Esteban Ortiz, 21, whether he was a member of any other gang and then attacked him with their fists when he said he was not.

As Ortiz’s 19-year-old brother, Arturo, and four friends jumped out of a car and ran to his aid, a gang member opened fire, officers said.

Arturo Ortiz and one of the friends, Jesus Silva, 18, were killed, said Det. Rudy Lemos of the Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Division. Esteban Ortiz was wounded in the neck, but is expected to recover. None of the victims belonged to a gang, Lemos said.

“These gang members, they’ll ask you where you’re from, but there’s never a right answer,” Lemos said. “It’s like a rattlesnake rattling before it strikes.”

Arturo Ortiz, who worked in construction, had been planning to marry his girlfriend, Veronica Velasco, 17.

“He wrote poems to me,” Velasco said Friday. “He was really sweet.”

Family member’s said Ortiz’s mother, Bertha Sanchez, is grief-stricken.

“We’re trying to get her to stop crying, just for a second, but she can’t,” said a relative, Jenny Marquez.

Silva’s older sister, Irene, 20, said her brother--the only male among seven siblings--could be brusque and strong-headed, but he was loving.

“He acted hard, but he had a big heart,” she said.

He drove his four younger sisters, ages 4 to 10, to school every day, relatives said.

“The 4-year-old thinks he’s still in the hospital sleeping,” Irene Silva said.

“He didn’t like gang members,” she said. “He thought they were lowlifes. . . . He went to help a friend in trouble, and he was killed.”

Gang crime, including homicides, is up in the 77th Division, which encompasses a large portion of Central Los Angeles, Lemos said. He said there have been 79 homicides in the division this year, compared to 67 through the same period last year. More than 50 of this year’s slayings have been gang-related, the detective said.

“They’re urban terrorists,” Lemos said.

Anyone with information about any of the killings is asked to call homicide detectives at (213) 485-1385 or (877) 529-3855.