Closing Arguments Presented in Grocer’s Trial for Shooting

A Korean-American grocer accused of shooting a black teen-ager to death should be convicted of murder, a prosecutor told a jury Monday, while defense lawyers urged the panel to conclude that the shopkeeper had committed no crime at all.

Jury deliberations are scheduled to begin today in the trial of Soon Ja Du, 49, accused of shooting 15-year-old Latasha Harlins inside Empire Liquor Market in South-Central Los Angeles on March 16.

In her closing argument Monday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Roxane Carvajal asked for a second-degree murder conviction and portrayed Du, 49, as the aggressor in the dispute.

Carvajal also accused Du of “gross negligence” and irresponsibility for picking up a gun when she knew nothing about firearms--not even that they go off when the trigger is pulled, according to the grocer’s testimony.

“She knows, according to her testimony, that all she has to do is pick (the gun) up, shake it and it goes off,” Carvajal told jurors who had watched Du demonstrate last week how she thought the .38 caliber revolver worked. “She doesn’t know how to use a gun, yet she takes it out of the holster and points it at Latasha. She knows that’s how it goes off.”

Du’s lawyer, in his response, said Du had every right to defend herself after the teen-ager struck her forcefully in the face three or four times during a dispute over a $1.79 quart of orange juice the grocer thought the girl was trying to steal. The gun went off accidentally, he said.

Attempts to portray the grocer’s actions any other way are “Monday-morning quarterbacking,” said the lawyer, Richard Leonard.

“You have to consider what was happening at that point in time, what Mrs. Du was thinking,” Leonard said. “Her state of mind is important.”

He asked the jury to find Du not guilty of any crime, or--”at the most”--of involuntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum four-year sentence. A conviction on the second-degree murder charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years to life.

Du testified that she thought she “was going to die” after Latasha struck her.

In a security camera videotape aired repeatedly during the trial, Du and Harlins are seen scuffling after the shopkeeper accused the teen of trying to shoplift. Du is seen grabbing Harlins’ sweater; Harlins then strikes the merchant, knocking her to the floor. Du hurls a chair at Harlins, who then turns to leave. Du gets a gun from a shelf underneath the counter and removes it from a holster. As she holds the gun, it goes off and Harlins falls to the floor, dead.

The shooting was one of a series of violent incidents this year between Korean-American merchants and black customers in African-American neighborhoods. The incidents and the resulting tensions alarmed city officials.

Black activists last week agreed to end a nearly 4-month-old boycott of another Korean-American-owned market as part of a truce between blacks and Koreans negotiated by Mayor Tom Bradley’s office.