Deputy Chief Paul Kennedy, center, talks with the Javier family on their front porch at 145 Camden Ave., Providence, yesterday where their son’s friend, Jeffrey Lopez, 19, was fatally shot Monday night.

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The Providence Journal Mary Murphy

PROVIDENCE — A decision by two Smith Hill teenagers to walk through a pack of Laos Pride gang members cost one of them his life, the police said.

Jeffrey Lopez, 19, was gunned down Monday night on the front porch of an apartment house less than two blocks from where the confrontation took place on a Camden Avenue sidewalk. A second shot grazed the back of Lopez’s friend, Carlos Javier, also 19.

A few minutes later, the police arrested two 16-year-old boys and the 13-year-old sister of one of the boys. The boys are charged with murder, while the girl is charged with retrieving the gun and threatening the teenage boys outside the gang hangout at 115 Camden Ave.

In a city where gun violence has surged in recent months, the police found the city’s eighth homicide of the year, and the second teenager killed in less than a week, particularly senseless.

“It’s ridiculous, frankly,” said Deputy Police Chief Paul J. Kennedy. “It’s not having enough room on the sidewalk to pass. It’s really disheartening. I don’t know how a police department goes about predicting this kind of behavior.”

Since Jan. 1, there have been 33 gunshot victims in the city, up from 18 during last year’s first six months.

The latest killing also underscored the mounting problems with the Smith Hill-based Laos Pride street gang. The police arrested the two alleged gunmen at 65 Osborn St., the same address where another member of the Asian gang was shot in the leg two months ago.

And, two weeks ago, four members of Laos Pride, two of whom are juveniles, were arrested in the city’s West End on weapons charges right after they allegedly opened fire on a rival gang — the Hanover Boyz. No one was wounded in that attack.

Kennedy said that the Laotian gang has been a priority for the department’s Gang Intervention Unit.

“We are working hard on bringing them under control,” he said. “We are trying to get them to stop the violence and put the guns down.”

The police were careful to point out that the murder was not “gang-related.” They said that Lopez and Javier were not known to the police and had no gang affiliation. Instead, they just happened to confront the wrong group at the wrong time.

On Monday night, shortly after 8 p.m., Lopez and Javier, high school friends from Textron Chamber of Commerce Academy, were heading to the Javier family apartment at 145 Camden Ave. They approached Vale Street and spotted a knot of Asian youths hanging out on the sidewalk.

The corner is across the street from the playground at the Harry Kizarian Elementary School. A nearby utility pole is marked with gang graffiti: “Laos Pride” and “J-LOC,” meaning, Junior-Laotians Out of Control.

The police said that the teenagers decided to walk through the pack near a large locust tree that had sprouted from the sidewalk. They bumped into several of the Laotian boys, and the police said, the teenage girl may have been pushed to the side.

Words were exchanged and the police said that the girl ran inside the apartment house. She emerged with a chrome-plated handgun tucked in her waistband, the police said.

Lopez and Javier had seen enough. They decided to head to the apartment house where Javier lives.

The police said that the girl, who is not a member of the gang, returned the gun to the apartment she shares with her family. The police said that the Laotian boys were not done. The brother of the girl went back inside and got the gun. About five minutes later, he and a group of about 15 other Laotian boys marched up the street to 145 Camden Ave.

There, Lopez and Javier sensing trouble, ran inside the powder blue vinyl-sided building. They waited five minutes and returned to the porch, mistakenly thinking that the Laotian boys had left.

Again, words were exchanged and two shots were fired. The police said that one of the bullets struck Lopez in the back of the neck; the second grazed Javier’s back.

Rafael Javier, the father of Carlos Javier, said he was in his third-floor apartment watching the Red Sox when he heard two gunshots. He ran downstairs and found the wounded Lopez on the second-floor landing. He said that his son had helped drag him up the stairs.

“Really, I don’t know what happened,” said the elder Javier, a substitute math teacher at Mount Pleasant High School.

The police said that the gang of Laotians ran back down Camden Avenue and up Vale Street to Osborn Street. Two Providence police officers assigned to the bicycle patrol, Francisco Guerra and Ludwig Castro developed information that the shooting suspects were at 65 Osborn St. They radioed Sgt. Roger Aspinall, the district supervisor, for backup.

Four Laotian youths, including the two gunmen, were captured at that address. The police also seized a handgun from the house that they believe was used in the shooting.

The two gunmen were each charged with murder and murder conspiracy, while the girl was charged with two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon. They also were charged with multiple firearms violations.

They are being held at the state Training School for Youth pending their appearances in Family Court.

Late yesterday morning, two marked police cruisers remained parked outside the apartment house where Lopez was killed. Bloodstained shoe prints were visible on the front porch. Carlos Javier, who wore a Red Sox cap, emerged from the house and officers took him to police headquarters for further questioning.

The police plan to meet with prosecutors to decide whether the youths will be waived from juvenile court and tried as adults.

Kennedy said that Lopez lived with a family on Alma Street in Federal Hill. His parents live in Florida and the police notified them about their son’s death. They returned to Rhode Island yesterday.

bmalinow@projo.com