Korean Shopkeeper Killed in Robbery : Violence: In another incident, a Korean-owned liquor store is burned, but community leaders say the episodes do not seem racially motivated.

A Korean shopkeeper was shot and killed by robbery suspects and a Korean-owned liquor store was severely damaged in an arson fire Tuesday, but community leaders were quick to stress that the incidents did not seem to be racially motivated.

Coming amid efforts by Korean and black leaders to calm tensions between their communities, the shooting death of 33-year-old Kwang Yul Chun was chalked up to life in a high-crime area. “We have a lot of people on drugs that would just as easily kill me as they would anyone else,” said Richard A. Foster, a black pharmacist who works next to Chun’s beauty supplies store. Foster said he and Chun would regularly greet each other in the morning before work.

Chun was killed Monday afternoon during a robbery at the shop. Two men entered Century Fashion on Jefferson Boulevard in Southwest Los Angeles and demanded money at gunpoint, police said. Chun was shot as he struggled with one of the men. Both of the suspects are black.

He was pronounced dead about 5:20 p.m. at the California Medical Center.

The suspects escaped with an undetermined amount of cash, said Los Angeles Police Detective Richard Crotsley.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators, meanwhile, said a fire that destroyed the Korean-owned Imperial Highway Liquor Store near Whittier early Tuesday was caused by arson. The owner was slightly injured in the blaze; damage was put at $135,000, Detective Barney Villa said.

The shooting and the fire come on the heels of a difficult summer in which tensions between Korean merchants and their black customers were heightened by several violent incidents. Two blacks were killed by Korean shopkeepers, and black groups staged a boycott of several stores. A number of stores were firebombed.

Korean leaders, meanwhile, pointed to the slayings of several Korean grocers in recent years as evidence of the violence that feeds suspicions.

A fragile truce was declared earlier this month, and leaders from both ethnic groups have been working to downplay tensions and heal divisions.

The newly formed African-Korean American Christian Alliance, responding to the shooting of Chun, Tuesday offered a $5,500 reward for information leading to the arrest of the suspects.

It is in the interests of blacks and Koreans alike, members of the alliance said, to put an end to the crime that hurts all law-abiding citizens.

“There must be a determined and concentrated effort by all of us to wage an unrelenting war against the criminal element in our community,” the Rev. Joseph L. Griffin said at a press conference in front of Chun’s store. “We have as our ultimate goal the removal of walls of misunderstanding between the communities.”

Pastor Hae Soung Kim, of the Young Saeng Presbyterian Church, echoed Griffin’s sentiments. “Many people misunderstand,” he said. “They say Koreans hate black people; blacks hate Koreans. That is not true.”

Kim said poverty is at the root of the problem and he urged local government to take some action. He said his church had donated $3,000 of the reward money.

Chun leaves behind a wife and two children.

Increasingly, Korean-American community leaders especially are seeking to cast shootings and other violent incidents as crimes fueled by poverty--some of the everyday hazards of big-city life.

“A lot of Koreans . . . are angry that the incidents are portrayed as racial issues,” said Yumi Park, executive director of the Korean American Grocers Assn. “They should be seen as a crime issue. Crimes go on all the time in the Los Angeles area, especially South-Central. (Merchants) bear risks all the time.”

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles City Council offered a $5,000 reward for information in connection with the shooting of 9-year-old Juri Kang, who recently was critically wounded during a robbery at her parents’ South-Central gas station and mini-mart.

Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this story.