KIDNAPING SUSPECT SLAIN; VICTIM FREED

A bound and blindfolded kidnap victim was rescued Saturday night shortly after plainclothes detectives shot to death one of his alleged abductors as the suspect attempted to escape from a supermarket parking lot in Los Feliz, police said Sunday.

The kidnap victim, one of two men who had been abducted at gunpoint from a North Hollywood apartment Nov. 20, was found in a car in West Covina. Police arrested two suspects there and also took into custody three men they located elsewhere in West Covina. A police spokesman said Sunday that more arrests were expected.

However, the spokesman refused to identify the men who were abducted, or the suspect who was slain. The spokesman also declined to comment on why the victims were selected for kidnaping.

The shooting Saturday night began about 30 minutes after one of the kidnap victims, who had been released Nov. 25 after an undisclosed ransom had been paid, drove his car into a Safeway parking lot at 4520 Sunset Blvd., police said. The kidnapers had instructed the former captive to leave ransom money behind in the car.

At 6 p.m., two men drove up to the car, which was under police surveillance, and one suspect entered it. When he walked away from the car, detectives converged on the two men, police said.

Police arrested the driver, Refugio Castillo, 38, without incident and recovered a cocked and loaded semiautomatic pistol on the pavement next to the car.

However, the other suspect fled on foot and in the pursuit, detectives Henry Cadena, 45, and John C. Helms, 36, fired four rounds from .45-caliber semiautomatic pistols when they saw the man was armed.

Still running across the parking lot, the suspect stopped and turned in the direction of a police officer. Detective Michael G. Sirk, 42, a 21-year veteran, believing the suspect was going to shoot, fired his 12-gauge shotgun once, police said. The wounded man dropped a loaded semiautomatic pistol, fell to the pavement and was taken to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was treated for gunshot wounds. He died at 7:10 p.m.

Detectives went to several locations in West Covina and arrested five more people without incident and confiscated four weapons.

At one of the locations, police found the second kidnap victim, bound and blindfolded in a car. He was treated at California Medical Center for bruises and possible internal injuries and later released.

In addition to Castillo, police identified the other arrested suspects as Jose F. Garcia, 36; Pedro G. Garces, 29; Byron R. Mendizaval, 26; Jose Quezada, 26, and Marina Maldonado, 29.

The six were booked on suspicion of murder in connection with the death of the suspect police killed in the supermarket parking lot.