LOS ANGELES -- Two gang members seeking vengeance on a cocaine dealer got the wrong address and mistakenly killed four relatives of former professional football star Kermit Alexander, police say.
The suspects were being held without bail Sunday.
Horace Edwin Burns, 20, was arrested at his South Los Angeles home Saturday and booked on suspicion of murder. Another suspect, Tiequin Cox, 18, was jailed earlier in the slayings of Alexander's mother, sister and two nephews.
The two suspects were to face a police line-up on Tuesday, when formal murder charges were expected to be filed by the district attorney.
Police Chief Daryl Gates called the Aug. 31 shootings 'tragic' and 'stupid.'
He said the gunmen who broke into Alexander's mother's home had the right house number but were on the wrong block.
'They are so stupid they didn't get the address right, and the Alexander family had to pay for their stupidity,' Gates said. 'It's about as tragic a situation as you will ever find.'
Both suspects were identified as members of the Rollings 60s street gang, described by authorities as one of the most violent of the hundreds of gangs in the city.
Cox has been identified by prosecutors as the man who actually pulled the trigger on the sawed-off .30-caliber carbine used in the slayings. Police have recovered what they say is the murder weapon.
The victims of the shootings were Alexander's mother, Ebora, 58; his sister, Dietra, 24, and nephews Damani Garner-Alexander, 13, of San Francisco, and Damon Bonner, 8, of Pittsburgh.
Another nephew, Ivan Bonner, 13, escaped by hiding in a closet when the two gunmen burst into the neat, white house. Alexander's brother, Neal, 33, wrestled with one of the assailants and escaped unharmed.
Alexander was a star back at UCLA, graduating in 1963. He played seven years as a defensive back for the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL, before being traded in 1970 to the Los Angeles Rams.
Gates said the events leading to the slayings began when Burns and Cox allegedly held up a cocaine dealer and an 'associate' of Burns was 'retaliated against' for the holdup.
Burns and Cox were trying to 'pay back' the earlier attack, Gates said, when they burst into the Alexander house.
