Video shows killing of 7-Eleven worker over stolen hot dog and beer, police say
Surveillance video shows a husband and wife working at a 7-Eleven being stabbed by a homeless man who had just stolen malt liquor and a hot dog, police said.
The video shows the couple confronting the man in the 7-Eleven parking lot, then the man attacking both of them.
The couple were working about 9:15 a.m. at the store off Laurel Canyon and Chandler boulevards in Valley Village when a man in his 40s walked in, grabbed a Mickey’s and a hot dog and started to leave, said Lt. John Jenal of the Los Angeles Police Department.
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The female clerk confronted the thief, who “shanked her multiple times,” then stabbed her husband when he came out to check on his wife, Jenal said.
Police were called and found the attacker walking down the street with the drink and hot dog, Jenal said. He was arrested and will be booked on suspicion of murder, Jenal said.
Police said the woman was in critical condition. Her husband died at the hospital, the county coroner said.
The two have not been identified by police, but friends told KTLA they were Washi Ahmed and Lagrima “Paulina” Lopez.
Regulars at the 7-Eleven expressed shock over the incident.
“I’m just at a loss for words,” customer Kelly Seidel told KTLA. “They’re the best people in the whole world, and I just can’t believe that something like this would happen.”
He said the store has been affected by crime before.
“I’ve seen hoodlums come in and they try to go out with a couple twelve packs of beer, and I actually went after a guy down the sidewalk one day and got the two twelve packs of beer back,” he told KTLA.
The slaying is the first homicide in Valley Village since a fatal shooting in April 2014, according to the Los Angeles Times’ Homicide Report.
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