Latinos Ask State Probe in Grocer’s Shooting of Boy

A group of prominent Mexican Americans asked state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren on Monday to investigate a Lynwood grocer’s shooting of a 14-year-old boy who allegedly had shoplifted a package of cookies.

Attorney Alex Jacinto said Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti had “abused his discretion” by refusing to file charges against the grocer.

Garcetti announced last week that his office declined to prosecute grocer Su Yong (Michael) Kim because “no prosecutable crime occurred.” No jury would convict Kim on the available evidence, Garcetti said.

“The district attorney didn’t believe he had sufficient evidence to prosecute; we do,” Jacinto said at a news conference outside the Criminal Courts Building, where Garcetti’s office is located.

Jacinto said he and about a dozen “concerned citizens” met with Garcetti before he announced his decision, and the district attorney never told them that Kim had changed his story. Garcetti’s office issued a report Thursday saying Kim had initially said he shot Aldo Vega on April 2 in self-defense. The grocer later changed his story to say the shooting was accidental.

If the accidental shooting version is true, Jacinto said, prosecutors would not be able to establish an intent to shoot. But if it was self-defense, he said, there is an intent to shoot, and an assault with a deadly weapon charge could have been filed. A jury should have been allowed to decide if the shooting was actually self-defense or assault with a deadly weapon, Jacinto said.

Authorities said Kim, armed with a handgun, got into his car and followed Vega and Miguel Torres, 18, who had allegedly stolen cookies and potato chips from Kim’s market. Kim chased and confronted Vega and Torres on a nearby street. Vega, who was critically wounded, is recovering and walks with a cane.

Garcetti was out of town Monday and could not be reached for comment.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Peter Bozanich, who oversaw the review of the Sheriff’s Department investigation and who was in the meeting last week with the community activists, denied that any information was withheld from them.

There was “quite a bit of discussion” during the meeting, he said, about what Kim told deputies during a “perfunctory” interview immediately after the shooting and what he later told investigators during a formal, taped interview through an interpreter.

As a result of the first interview, a deputy wrote in his report that Kim told him he pulled the gun from his pocket and fired after he saw one of the youths coming toward him with what the grocer thought was a knife. The other raised his shirt and appeared to reach for something near his waistband, Kim told investigators.

Kim “didn’t say self-defense, but you can infer self-defense,” Bozanich said Monday.

In Kim’s second interview, he said the gun went off as he attempted to steady it in his hands, in preparation for defending against what he thought would be an attack by the youths, Bozanich said.

“The stories are not inconsistent,” Bozanich said. “There’s just not enough information in the first.”

After the shooting, Kim drove Vega back to the market and called police.

Kim had the legal right to arm himself and make a citizen’s arrest if he believed a crime had been committed, Garcetti said last week. He also had a right, Garcetti said, to point the gun at Vega and Torres.

Because Kim is Korean American and Vega is Mexican American, some Latino activists had described the shooting as racially motivated, but Jacinto said Monday that he did not see the shooting as a racial incident.