Brothers Are Slain in Gang Shooting : Violence: Police say the pair were stuck in traffic in Hollywood when shots were fired into their car. Two other young men die in separate incidents.

Heavy traffic along Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood early Saturday left two teen-age brothers and a friend easy targets for a group of youths, described by police as “rival gang members,” who walked up to their car in bumper-to-bumper traffic, fired repeatedly into the open driver’s window and fled on foot.

The barrage of bullets left the brothers dead and their companion hospitalized.

The names of the brothers, ages 15 and 17, were withheld pending notification of family. The name of the wounded youth, who was in stable condition, was withheld by police for his safety.

Two other young men died in separate gang-related shootings elsewhere in the Los Angeles area, authorities said. And police in Inglewood undertook a gang crackdown that resulted in the arrests of 26 people.

The Hollywood incident was at least the third of its kind to occur this year amid the thousands of young people and others who regularly flock to Hollywood and Sunset boulevards on weekend nights to cruise, authorities said. The popular pastime, which police repeatedly have tried to discourage, jams the two tourist strips with stop-and-go traffic.

“There have been three cases where (victims) were gridlocked, trapped in traffic and unable to escape and people walked up and blasted them,” Los Angeles Police Lt. Brad Merrit said Saturday. “There may be more but three just popped into my mind.”

Merritt said the crimes appeared to have been committed by members of different gangs.

The latest occurred at 1:54 a.m Saturday as the victims sat in their 1970s model Cadillac in the eastbound lanes of Sunset between Serrano and Western avenues, Police Sgt. Michael Sayre said.

“Several rival gang members approached the car on foot,” Sayre said, and “a suspect then began firing into the open driver’s window. The driver and a passenger expired at the scene.

“The suspects fled on foot and no vehicle belonging to the suspects was seen.”

To minimize cruising--a sort of slow-driving mating ritual for many teen-agers--police in Hollywood have tried barricading side streets so motorists cannot easily return to the street they want to cruise. They also have used computers to track cars that show up on the same stretch of street more than once within two hours.

Streets off Hollywood Boulevard, but not Sunset, were barricaded Saturday night.

In a separate shooting, which Los Angeles police also described as gang-related, Jermaine Jones, 19, of Los Angeles, was shot to death about 3:40 a.m Saturday in the Mid-City area by two men who walked up to him and fired as he stood with two other youths in front of an abandoned apartment building at 5075 W. Washington Blvd.

Jones was shot twice in the chest and died immediately, Detective Dan Andrews said. There were no arrests.

In Long Beach, a 17-year-old boy was gunned down in an alley behind an apartment complex at 1120 Magnolia St. at 9:15 p.m. Friday. Police Lt. Robert Titus said the youth, shot twice, died in surgery at St. Mary Medical Center.

The boy, whose name was withheld pending notification of relatives, was killed by rival gang members who raced down the alley in a car and fired at least six rounds from a .22-caliber handgun, Titus said.

In Inglewood, police descended on known gang hangouts in that city and arrested 26 gang members Friday night, Officer R. V. LaFrance said.

“The emphasis was to discourage criminal gang activity by high-profile enforcement of all laws in areas where gangs are known to congregate,” she said.