7 Is Unlucky for Robber : Koreatown Shop Owner, Held Up 6 Times Before by Same Man, Is Ready and Shoots Him 5 Times

It started Sunday morning the same way it had six other times in the last two weeks.

A man wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt and a denim jacket walked into the Western Donut shop at the corner of Western Avenue and 4th Street in Koreatown, a revolver bulging from the waist of his trousers.

“Do you want to die?” the man asked Sim Tang Tah, 37, owner of the shop. Tah shook his head, reached into the cash register, pulled out whatever cash he could find and handed it over to the man.

But this time, at about 7:45 a.m., the scenario changed. Tah--six times an easy target to the same gunman in just 12 days--turned vengeful defender.

As the unidentified man moved to flee the doughnut shop, Tah reached behind the counter, grabbed a .38-caliber revolver he had bought the day before, and fired all five rounds. Four shots hit the man, one in the face, police said.

As the wounded man tried to stumble from the shop, an angry Tah warned him, “Don’t get up,” police said. The man did get up, and Tah, his own gun spent, shot him a fifth time with the man’s own weapon, police said.

Grabs a Revolver

“He simply had had enough,” Police Sgt. T. Kulik said of the doughnut shop owner. “He was very irate. He knew the man as soon as he walked in the door. This guy was stretching his luck coming here seven times. This time his luck ran out.”

The man, whom police and witnesses described as in his 20s, stumbled from the doughnut shop to his car, which was parked nearby. Bleeding profusely, he drove several blocks west on 3rd Street until he reached St. Brendan’s Catholic Church, police said.

As about 200 people awaited the start of 8 a.m. Mass, the man worked his way up the front steps of the church, through the large oak doors and down the flagstone center aisle, witnesses said. He left a trail of blood, finally coming to rest in a pew several yards from the altar.

Groaning, Asking for Water

“He was groaning,” said Father Richard Loomis, who was about to begin Mass. “We didn’t have a clear picture of what had happened. All we knew was that there was a man in the church who was bleeding profusely and who was asking for help and some water.”

As two doctors from the congregation administered first aid to the man, police arrived at the church. Kulik said the dazed man told officers that he had come to confess his crimes. Loomis, however, said the man was delirious and did not offer a confession.

Paramedics took the man to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition late Sunday, police said.

Police, who did not know the man’s name, said he will be charged with armed robbery. Tah will not be charged.

“I think he is relieved that it is over,” Kulik said. “He identified himself as a hero. . . . He was clearly acting in self-defense.”

Tah, who closed his shop Sunday morning, would not comment on the incident. An employee at Western Donut said Tah, who moved here from Cambodia 10 years ago, feared publicity. “It would be a little dangerous for him,” the employee said.

While the shooting came as a surprise to the police, the robbery did not.

Police Sgt. Sterling Gordon said he had told officers at their morning briefing to increase patrols near the doughnut shop because the gunman was known to hit the shop on Sundays. Kulik said two police cars were en route to the shop when the robbery and shooting occurred.

A private investigator was also on his way to the shop. The investigator, whom Tah had hired on Thursday after the sixth robbery, had placed a concealed tape recorder in the shop and had planned to spend Sunday night in the back room waiting for the robber to show again.

“He kept coming back on two- to four-day intervals,” said the investigator, who asked not to be identified. The robber had made off with about $600 in the previous robberies, he said. “He just got very lucky--until today.”

Police at the scene said robberies and holdups are common in Koreatown, although they said the suspect has been connected only to the seven robberies at Western Donut. Kulik said many shop owners, particularly Asians, are beginning to arm themselves.

‘Fear of Their Lives’

The Asian shop owners “are in fear of their lives,” Kulik said. “They are considered easy victims and easy prey. They are identified as complacent and rather placid.”

Police said there was no way they could have prevented the shooting and seventh robbery.

“The police officers can’t be at every location every time there is a robbery,” Kulik said. “Two units were on their way to the victim at the time to tell him they were going to be watching out for him.”