FRIENDS HONOR SLAIN TEENS.

Byline: Mary F. Pols  Daily News Staff Writer

Carwash fund-raisers typically provide money for school trips, sports uniforms and the other little extras.

But Tuesday, a group of Sun Valley teens scrubbing cars at Vanowen Street and Klump Avenue had something different in mind - raising enough money to bury two of their friends.

Johnny Liendo and Keith Hernandez, both 17, are the first two people to die in street violence in the San Fernando Valley in 1997. And quite possibly, police say, the friends' killings in a drive-by shooting Friday night may have been a case of mistaken identity.

Friends of the two teen-agers, gunned down while riding a bicycle, say the high school students simply fell victim to a troubled neighborhood, a place so rough that Keith sketched out his own funeral instructions a year ago to his older sister.

``Everybody pays for somebody else's stupid mistake around here,'' said Anna Galvez, Keith's 22-year-old sister and a Bank of America employee.

Los Angeles Police Department detectives are working some leads in the fatal shootings, but North Hollywood LAPD Homicide Detective Mike Coffey said neither boy had a police record or any known gang affiliation.

``I can tell you for a fact that they are not in our gang files,'' Coffey said.

Coffey said both victims in the 10:20 p.m. shooting were wearing hooded sweat shirts and could have been mistaken for someone else. Johnny was pedaling a bicycle, Keith was seated on its handlebars, when they were gunned down, just a few doors down from Keith's home.

Coincidentally, the shooting in the 10800 block of Strathern Street occurred just a block away from an underground party.

There are no witnesses to the slayings, Coffey said.

Mourning friends and family members gathered at the carwash are confident that Johnny and Keith, two teens who tried hard to avoid the pull of gangs in their neighborhoods, were mistaken for others.

The event, which was Galvez's idea, aimed to make enough money to pay for a wake and a funeral for both teens.

A fund established for victims of crime will help cover some of the costs, but Keith had told his sister he wanted a Spanish band to play at his wake and she wants to honor his request.

Too proud to ask for donations without giving something in return, Galvez said she chose a corner carwash as a way to approach people without intimidating them.

``The way we talk and the way we dress makes people think certain things about us,'' she said, pointing to the baggy jeans and loose T-shirts of the boys standing around her. ``We wanted to give something in return for what we are asking for.''

Community members said it can be a challenge keeping kids, even good kids, safe in the Sun Valley neighborhood where Johnny and Keith lived.

``That area there is pretty rough,'' said Phil Tabbi, a member of the community Police Advisory Board and the Sun Valley Neighborhood Watch. ``The gangs are in there pretty heavily. It is real hard to raise a kid in that area.''

The double homicide comes just a week after police released statistics showing significant drops in the Valley murder rate in 1996. Killings were down 31 percent from 1995.

Through Dec. 14 there were 74 homicides reported in the Valley, compared with 107 in 1995 and 80 in 1994. Gang-related homicides continue to be the department's ``Achilles' heel,'' police said.

Taking a break Tuesday from washing cars, Abraham Rodriguez, 18, said his friend Keith tried to stay away from trouble.

Keith was described as a ``mellow'' guy, who loved to make his friends laugh. According to them, he had successfully resisted being in a gang.

``You try your best to go on the straight path,'' Rodriguez said. ``It's hard not to take the wrong path.''

Keith went to Grant High School, where, his sister said, he was an honor student. He was scheduled to return to school Monday and was talking about taking the SATs in hopes of getting a college scholarship.

Johnny, a former Polytechnic High School football player, had been enrolled in a home school program during the past year but planned to re-enroll in the Sun Valley high school this week.

Preparing to bury her younger brother, who would have turned 18 on Jan. 24, Galvez is full of regrets. She wonders why the killers couldn't have settled for beating Keith and Johnny up.

Why couldn't Keith have played dead after being hit in the back instead of getting up and trying to run away, causing the killers to shoot him again, this time in the head?

But if the killers could spend a few minutes in her family's living room, watching them grieve, she is convinced she could stop them from doing the same thing to someone else's brother or son.

``If only they could sit there and see our pain,'' she said.

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) Steve, 6, left front, Desiree, 13, Danny, 16, and 10-year-old Richard Liendo, sit in front of photos of their brother Johnny, who was killed Friday.

John McCoy/Daily News

(2) Louis Morales, 19, washes a car Tuesday to help raise money to pay for the funerals of two teens killed in a drive-by shooting.

Evan Yee/Daily News

(3 -- color) Johnny Liendo: The 17-year-old former Polytechnic High School football player planned to re-enroll in school this week. Fell victim to a community plagued by gangs and crime.

(4 -- color) Keith Hernandez: The 17-year-old Grant High School honor student hoped to land a college scholarship. Friends say he was a ``mellow'' guy who successfully resisted being in a gang.