Clerk Kills Gunman in Liquor Store

An Oakland man who ran into an Inglewood liquor store Monday afternoon to reload his revolver during a gun battle outside the shop was shot to death by the store’s clerk after he pointed the gun at the clerk, police said.

The turmoil began when Charles Westbrook, 25, of Oakland, emerged from a Century Boulevard motel and began randomly firing a .44 Magnum into the air. Two unidentified men objected to the gunfire and after a heated argument, one of them shot Westbrook’s friend, Vernon Dunbar, 25, of Oakland, in the chest.

Westbrook, Dunbar and another friend fled across the street to Mr. B’s Liquor Mart at 10025 S. Prairie Ave., where the injured Dunbar pleaded with the clerk to call paramedics. The clerk spotted Westbrook in the doorway with a gun and, believing him to be the man who shot Dunbar, demanded that he drop it, police said.

Westbrook turned his gun on the clerk, who fired his own weapon from behind the counter, killing Westbrook, police said.

Dunbar was in stable condition Wednesday at Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center with a bullet wound to the chest. The gunman who shot Dunbar was still at large, police said. No charges have been filed in the killing, which is under investigation.