Shoemaker Slain; Had No Money for Robbers

For the past decade or so, ever since his arrival from El Salvador, Jesus Escobar had been living in a teeming immigrant neighborhood west of downtown called Pico-Union. Although the years have brought crime and drugs to the streets there, the 61-year-old shoemaker managed to keep a smile on his face and a few dollars in his pocket.

Always looking to improve business at his small shop on West 11th Street, Escobar recently asked the building’s manager to include his business phone number on the newly installed sign over the store. “Don’t worry,” replied manager Moises Guzman, “I’ll take care of it.”

On Wednesday afternoon, two robbers burst into the small shop, where Escobar was working alone. One leaped over the shop’s counter and demanded money. Escobar had none to give, but that was not good enough. The men fatally shot him in the face, said Rampart Division police, who are searching for the assailants.

The killing has left his shocked relatives and friends groping for an answer to who would want to harm the mild-mannered father of three sons.

“There is no sense to crime these days in this big city,” said Escobar’s grieving sister, Carmen Escobar. “Why?”

“He had no problems with anybody,” added sister Graciela Escobar.

Merchants near the dead man’s shoe repair shop--Reparacion de Calzado Escobar--said other businesses in the area, including a Salvadoran restaurant next door and a flower shop around the corner, were better off than Escobar.

“It’s such a shame,” said waitress Francisca Molina at the Iris Restaurant next door to the shoe repair shop. “We make more money than he did.”

Guzman said the neighborhood around 11th Street and Union Avenue has been plagued in recent years with drugs, robberies, public drunkenness and petty thefts.

“See those men sitting over there?” Guzman said, motioning across Union Avenue where several men were sitting in a shaded area to avoid the late-morning sun. In the early mornings, he said, “they’re over here . . . creating problems.”

Despite the problems, Escobar tried to keep his spirits high as he worked, waving to friends and offering a friendly greeting to strangers.

The crime problem had become so bad at the four-story building, which is being upgraded with the help from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, that private security guards were hired in 1989, Guzman said.

The guard on duty Wednesday was in another area of the building when the attack occurred at 2:15 p.m.

“I didn’t see what happened,” said guard Jorge Ventura Montano, also a native of El Salvador. “But I wish I had been there. When I got there, Mr. Escobar was lying behind the counter.”

He was rushed to California Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead a short time later, officials said.

Meanwhile, the merchants near the shoe repair shop were wondering how to avoid the same fate.

“I’ve been in business only five months here,” said the manager of a nearby dress shop. “I can’t believe this has happened so close to me.”