Barricaded Man in Store Kills Himself

A 22-year-old man with a “history of mental illness” drove his car into the front of an Anaheim sporting goods store early Monday and was found dead nine hours later in a dressing room, where he had shot himself in the head, authorities said.

Tape-recorded pleas from his family in Korean and English, crisis negotiators and a psychologist drew no response from Jeffrey Allen Kim, an Anaheim resident whose body was discovered inside the Big 5 Sporting Goods store on Harbor Boulevard about 10 a.m. The coroner later determined that Kim had shot himself about 2 a.m.

Kim rammed into the structure with his car at 12:30 a.m. and did not emerge. Police, unable to make contact with him, assumed during the incident that he was alive. Because the store was stocked with weapons and ammunition, police said, the department’s special tactics detail was summoned and the building was surrounded.

The Orange County coroner’s office, which conducted an autopsy Monday afternoon, confirmed that Kim’s wound was self-inflicted and estimated that he died about 2 a.m., an hour before the SWAT team arrived. Officers said they never heard the shot.

Never Answered Phone

Anaheim Police Lt. Del Wade said Kim never answered telephone calls to the store or officers’ gentle cajoling--”it’s only broken glass, Jeff”--over a bullhorn to come out and end the barricade.

Kim lived with his sister and parents just a few miles away from the sporting goods shop. Wade said Kim appeared to have shot himself with a gun from the store’s inventory.

Neighbors of the Kim family said Jeff was their only son, a student at UC Irvine, where he earned excellent grades. But police said that Kim, who was an engineering major and computer whiz, had abruptly dropped out of school and, in recent months, became depressed.

And sources who asked not to be identified said Kim had made prior attempts to kill himself, though it was not known what troubled the young man.

The drama unfolded about 12:35 a.m., when the Anaheim Police Department received word of a silent burglar alarm at the Big 5, located at 2320 S. Harbor Blvd., near Chapman Avenue.

Arriving officers found that a tan Datsun 210 had been driven into the front of the store, shattering plate glass windows and bending a metal security shutter, which Kim apparently crawled under or around.

Two dozen members of the special Anaheim police detail arrived about 3 a.m. and began trying to telephone the man they believed was inside the store, Wade said. No shots were fired, and the phone was never answered.

Appeals by Family

By 5 a.m., crisis intervention specialists had recorded appeals from Kim’s mother and father and sister to “help the officers” and exit the store. The tapes were played several times over a loudspeaker in front of the store, police said.

Officers finally decided to enter the store. Kim was found dead shortly before 10 a.m.

Police could provide no motive for the apparent suicide, but Wade said that “Kim has a known past history of mental illness, the extent of which is unknown.”

Neighbors said they knew Kim as a quiet and solitary young man who had attended Katella High School, Fullerton College and UC Irvine and earned excellent grades.

His parents, who a neighbor said own a Los Angeles camera store, sequestered themselves inside their home Monday after officers delivered news of their son’s death and tearfully accepted condolences.