Bistro Owner’s Killing Sparks Patrols, Reward

Los Angeles police announced Thursday that they have assigned additional officers to the fashionable Westside neighborhood where bistro owner Andre Coffyn was fatally shot during a robbery this week by a man who may have committed six similar holdups since June 24.

In addition, City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, calling it “the type of crime that sends a shiver up the collective spine,” said the city will post a $25,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the killer.

Detectives said they are still seeking to determine whether the same man is responsible for a string of street holdups targeting people with Rolex watches, including one Wednesday in which a 60-year-old woman apparently was saved when the robber’s gun failed to fire.

The woman was confronted at 12:30 p.m. as she was heading from her car to a doctor’s appointment in the 8100 block of Beverly Boulevard, within walking distance of the other robberies, Detective Roger Gilbert said.

“He asked for the watch, and she refused,” Gilbert said.

“He pointed the gun toward her and the victim yelled, ‘No!’

“He pulled the trigger and it didn’t go off.

“Then she fell to the ground, yelling, ‘No, no, no!’ ”

Frightened by Car

Before the man could try to shoot again, a car drove by and frightened him off, the detective said.

Lt. Willie Pannell, who heads the Wilshire Division detective unit, would not disclose details of the “special deployment” ordered to catch the thief. But he said similar descriptions of the gunman, and the fact that the valuable Rolexes were sought at Coffyn’s restaurant and in the street robberies, led police to believe at least some of the crimes are linked.

There may be more than one man involved, Pannell said, citing “indications there was a driver and a getaway car” in the shooting of Coffyn “and a couple of the robberies.”

Approval Predicted

Yaroslavsky said police requested that a reward be offered in the case and he will ask the council for one Tuesday. He predicted quick approval of the measure.

Coffyn, 48, was on the patio of his Michel Richard bistro, sitting with a group of diners, when a gun-waving man approached about 11 p.m. Monday, just as the restaurant was about to close, and demanded their watches and money. The gunman fired once, killing Coffyn, a native of France who in 1987 purchased the cafe at 301 S. Robertson. “He was shot for no particular reason that we can determine,” Pannell said.

Both Yaroslavsky and Pannell tried to head off suggestions that authorities might be reacting more strongly than usual to the killing because it was in an affluent neighborhood, as in the case of Karen Toshima, who was fatally shot Jan. 30, 1988 in a gang cross-fire in Westwood.

Request Withdrawn

In the Toshima case, Yaroslavsky withdrew his request for a $25,000 reward after several council colleagues complained that unsolved gang-related murders in South-Central Los Angeles had not received similar attention.

“We offer rewards all the time, dozens and dozens of times, for exactly these kinds of crimes,” Yaroslavsky said Thursday, “where the offer of a reward may lead to the apprehension of the criminal.

“What’s at issue here is the confidence a community feels,” he said. “It wasn’t an estranged couple or a drug deal gone bad. He could have been you or me.”

“I hope we have to spend the $25,000,” the Westside councilman said. “My fear is we won’t.”

Composite Photo

Police on Thursday released a composite photo of the suspect in Coffyn’s killing, described as a light-complexioned black man in his 20s, about 6 feet tall and 170 pounds.

Detective Dan Andrews said the seven crimes under investigation still have only been “tentatively” linked because there have been some variations in witnesses’ descriptions of their attackers.