ENCINO : Grocer Shot to Death in Front of His Home

A 53-year-old Santa Monica grocer was shot and killed Tuesday night when he resisted a gunman’s attempt to rob him on a street that police say used to be one of Encino’s safest.

Police said the victim, Bahman Taheri, was parked in his Honda Civic just before midnight Tuesday when a stranger used a pistol to smash the passenger window.

The gunman shot Taheri once in the head, Los Angeles police Detective Rick Swanston said. Taheri died at the scene, which is in front of his apartment building in the 17500 block of Burbank Boulevard. A woman passenger escaped unhurt.

Swanston said violent crime once was unheard-of in the neighborhood, “but in the last year or two, we’ve had three (robbery-related) murders in that four-block area.”