Man on Parole Slain by Westminster Store Clerk

A Napa man convicted of robbery and paroled from prison earlier this month was shot to death by a Westminster liquor store clerk Monday night during what may have been a holdup bid, police said.

Charles Edward Brewer, 36, who was released on parole from Folsom Prison on June 5, died of a gunshot wound in the face, Lt. Richard Main said.

Police officers called to the scene at 6:45 p.m. found Brewer lying on the sidewalk outside Buck’s Liquor Store at 8051 Westminster Blvd. He had been shot by Jong Hyuk Lee, 18, one of two brothers working at the liquor store, Main said.

Brewer died an hour later at Humana Hospital Westminster, police said.

Police are unsure what happened immediately before the shooting, Main said Tuesday, and were awaiting results of an investigation. No charges have been filed against Lee, he said.

Before the shooting, Brewer wielded a knife in the store, police said, but they would not elaborate.

According to a manager at a nearby store who was at the scene minutes after the shooting and talked to the brothers, there was a struggle over a handgun that was kept under the cash register. During the fight, one of the brothers broke free and smashed a bottle over Brewer’s head, said the manager, who asked not to be identified.

The man said one brother then recovered the gun and shot Brewer, who staggered out of the liquor store and collapsed.

As officers arrived, a woman driving a car with Minnesota license plates pulled up in front of the store and tried to take Brewer’s body away, but police stopped her, the witness said.

Police, who declined to identify her, said she was an acquaintance of Brewer’s and that they had filed no charges against her.

Brewer has been in and out of state prisons in Minnesota and California for at least a dozen years, officials said. He was paroled from Folsom after serving three years of a 10-year sentence he received in Orange County on two counts of robbery and false imprisonment and four counts of assault with a deadly weapon, the Department of Corrections said.