Police Will Seek Murder Charge in Death of Thief : Crime: Detectives say a mechanic had no reason to shoot a man trying to steal his truck. He was not prosecuted for killing another burglar in December.

Three months ago, Enrique Agraz called police to his apartment in the Westlake district and led them to the body of a man he had just shot to death for trying to steal one of his six vehicles. Prosecutors could not find sufficient evidence to charge the 52-year-old unemployed auto mechanic.

This week, Agraz killed again.

But this time, even though he told an identical story, Rampart Division detectives say they will press for a murder charge Monday against Agraz, whom they portrayed as someone who shot his latest victim for no other reason than he was tired of people breaking into his cars.

“We feel very strongly we have a murder case here and we are going to very aggressively present it to the district attorney’s office,” Lt. Marlin Warkentin said.

Police contend that Agraz deliberately left the vehicles unlocked and rigged up a silent auto alarm system, which did not make sense if all he wanted to do was scare off thieves. Police said that although they believe both men had tried to burglarize Agraz’s cars, they do not believe his story of the most recent shooting.

Warkentin said the Agraz case was not comparable to that of Lance Thomas, a Westside watch store owner. Thomas has killed five men in four attempted robberies in the last two years and has not been prosecuted because the shootings were deemed justifiable. Warkentin noted that the victims in all those cases were armed.

The men Agraz killed--the latest was a transient whose name was withheld until his next of kin could be found--were unarmed with no records of violent criminal behavior, Warkentin said.

“We just can’t have citizens shooting suspects . . . when they are not even, at best, in fear of their lives,” he said.

Agraz was being held at the Parker Center Jail on Friday. He could not be reached for comment.

Police said the most recent shooting occurred before dawn Thursday after Agraz was alerted by a silent alarm that someone was tampering with one of his vehicles. The alarm was designed to sound in his apartment, but not in the garage.

Agraz got a .38-caliber pistol and persuaded the apartment manager to go with him to the garage, Warkentin said. When the two men reached the garage they saw a man inside Agraz’s Toyota pickup truck.

Agraz ordered the man out of the truck. The burglar behaved threateningly, Agraz told police, and advanced toward the two men, reaching for his waistband.

Agraz fired once, striking the man in the upper body. He died at the scene.

Warkentin said there were slight discrepancies between the accounts given by Agraz and the apartment manager, but that he did not believe that Agraz had cause to think he was in danger.

The car burglar, Warkentin said, had no weapon.

“The only thing he had on him were some burglar’s tools,” he said. “There was no reason to shoot him. I don’t think (Agraz) was in fear of his life.”

According to California law, a person who uses deadly force against an intruder must be in honest and reasonable fear of losing his or her life and may only use “resistance sufficient to prevent the offense.”

Warkentin questioned why Agraz set up an alarm system that did not sound inside his vehicles and why he would leave the doors open if he was trying to discourage thieves.

“I suppose you could rationalize that he left the doors open to keep them from breaking the windows, but why not put in an audible alarm top to scare away the suspect?” he said.

Warkentin said he is certain that officers suggested that to Agraz after the first shooting on Dec. 10.

In that case, when Agraz’s silent alarm went off, he interrupted Artemis Ward while Ward was tampering with Agraz’s prize 20-year-old Volkswagen.

In that case, Agraz also told police that the burglar kept walking toward him after he was ordered to stop. The only significant difference in the two shootings is that in the first, Agraz was alone with the burglar and in the second he had the apartment manager with him, Warkentin said.