Police Not Sure of Gang Involvement in Kidnaping of Boy, 3 : Crime: In addition, residents and Rolling 60s members question retribution theory.

As Los Angeles police on Sunday continued to search for a 3-year-old boy they believe was kidnaped by members of a Southwest Los Angeles street gang, some neighbors and some in the gang questioned the likelihood that members would be interested in abducting a child.

Detectives speculated that members of the Rolling 60s gang were responsible for abducting Milan DePillars from the front porch of his family’s Hyde Park home late Friday night in retaliation for his mother’s testimony last year against a gang member charged with raping her.

But a neighbor who lives across the street from the family’s stucco duplex in the 5500 block of Cimarron Avenue said the kidnaping was not in keeping with the style of most gang-related pay-backs.

“What the hell would a gang do with a 3-year-old child?” asked Thurston Limar, 27. “Gangs are easy to blame, but this is not Lebanon, where you keep somebody five or six years for nothing. If they were really going to mess with someone, they would just shoot up the house.”

About a mile away, in the heart of Rolling 60s turf, a 17-year-old youth known as Boo Roc contended his gang was being accused only because they have had a contentious relationship with police.

“If I had a problem, I wouldn’t deal with her kid,” he said. “They’re just trying to give us that name.”

Officers, who had been working on the case almost nonstop for 48 hours, conceded that they were not sure of the kidnaper’s identity. But because Milan’s mother had been warned by the Rolling 60s not to testify, police said they picked the gang-retribution theory for lack of another explanation.

The defendant in the case, sentenced last month, had been romantically involved with Milan’s mother, police said.

“That’s where we started,” said Detective Jay Rush. “We really don’t have any idea at this point.”

By Sunday night, there had been no ransom demand or any attempt by the kidnaper to contact the family, police said.

Another unusual aspect of the case was the fact that the kidnaping suspect was identified as a Latino, 18 to 22 years old with a tattoo on his left cheek, while the Rolling 60s are an almost exclusively black gang.

Detectives said that, in the past, some Latinos have been allowed to join the gang. But a member of the gang who declined to give his name said Sunday: “We ain’t got no Hispanics.”

The area around the DePillars home is claimed by the Van Ness Gangsters, which sometimes is at odds with the Rolling 60s, but even the Van Ness members said that kidnaping a child is not a tactic usually employed by gangs.

“If I couldn’t get back at a certain individual, I damn sure wouldn’t do nothing to their family,” said Tracy Stewart, 21, as he stood on a corner about a block from where Milan lives. “That’s because I wouldn’t want them to do nothing to my family.”

City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose district encompasses the DePillars home, said he was most concerned about the safe return of the child and not whether the culprits belonged to a street gang.

He said police today will distribute a composite sketch of the suspect and that, on Tuesday, he will introduce a resolution to establish a reward for information leading to the identification and conviction of those responsible.