A BLOODY clash between members of California’s two most enduring youth tribes – a professional surfer and rich whiteboy “gangsters” – is prompting fierce debate about indulgent parents and lazy policing in La Jolla, one of California’s wealthiest beachside towns.

Five young men are facing charges of murdering Emery Kauanui, a surfer whom they had brushed against in a bar. They then allegedly followed him home and beat him to death on his doorstep. Last week the drumbeat of blame and social division started to mount.

Anne Cleveland, the town council’s president, pronounced that La Jolla, a rich enclave north of San Diego and known for its surf, sun and hippie liberalism, is itself on trial. “Privilege, policing and parenting must also share responsibility for this dreadful death,” Cleveland said as the five young men were committed to trial.

It did not help that the 24-year-old victim was an “outsider”. His mother, Cindy Kauanui, a former model, had moved her three sons from Hawaii in 1992 in the wake of a hurricane and still felt out of place in a town of two classes – the rich and those who serve them.

She had become wealthy by recruiting local surfer boys and girls for magazine glamour shoots seeking “the Golden State essence”. Her Seth Cravens, above left, is said to be the leader of the gang accused of killing Emery Kauanui, right. The clash has thrown up the stark divisions in a Californian surfers’ paradise son was known as “the Flying Hawaiian” for his aerial stunts riding the 20ft waves that curl into La Jolla’s shores.

Although Emery Kauanui was no innocent – he had got into fights as a teenager – he had a steady girlfriend and was earning more than £50,000 a year in product endorsements.

He was, however, a surfer “dude”, good-natured and relaxed and thus a natural irritant to the “townies”, La Jolla’s disgruntled and bored children of wealthy computer and biotech entrepreneurs, who hate surfers.

His nemesis turned out to be five men aged between 20 and 22 who called themselves the Bird Rock Bandits. In a largely white and Hispanic town, they modelled themselves on black gangs.

Seth Cravens, the so-called gang leader and a spoilt child from an affluent home, boasted how tough he was on his MySpace page, where he claimed that he had already killed at least one rival.

One hot night last May, Kauanui provided the classic provocation by spilling beer over one of Cravens’s friends at the popular Brew House bar. He left the bar hurriedly, keen to avoid a confrontation, but Cravens and four friends followed him home and challenged him to a fight.

Details are sketchy, but witnesses agree that the surfer knocked down his first challenger, who was later found by police wandering around looking for a missing tooth.

Then, as Kauanui’s screaming girlfriend was held back, witnesses say Cravens punched him. The surfer lost his balance, fell and cracked his head. He died four days later in hospital. A few days afterwards, hundreds of surfers paddled into the balmy Pacific waters off La Jolla for a memorial service that was broadcast across the nation.

Cravens claims it was an accident. Last week he was sent to prison on $1.5m (£760,000) bail.

Despite parental denials that they actually did anything “gangsterish”, the five are being charged as a gang, which under California law carries an additional 20 years on top of any other jail sentences they may face.

The La Jolla Light, a local newspaper, says the youths were, like so many others in the town, beyond the control of parents, schools, church or police. “How does a smart, caring community like La Jolla allow this kind of spiralling thuggish behaviour for so long without taking notice?” it asked.

The police called the case unique, denying they turned a blind eye to the children of the wealthy drinking and fighting.

However, David Ponsford, a high-school football coach, said such alcohol-driven tragedies are “La Jolla’s dirty little secret”. He added: “We like to pretend it’s all Hollywood perfect in paradise in California’s golden sunlight. In fact it’s like many other American cities. It’s murder – in more stylish clothing.”

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