Gunman Fires in Auto Shop, Killing Owner : Crime: Businessman is slain and firm manager is wounded in Pacoima repair center shooting. Police arrest a suspect. : ‘ You always think something like this is going to happen everywhere else but here. ‘LAPD Sgt. Rick Webb

A gunman, apparently angry over a business dispute, opened fire at an auto repair shop Friday, killing the owner and wounding the manager, who ran across the street and collapsed at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division station.

“It was chaotic,” said LAPD Sgt. Rick Webb, the first officer on the scene. “You always think something like this is going to happen everywhere else but here.”

Webb said he ran to Moti’s Auto Electric Inc., at San Fernando Road and Osborne Street, shortly before noon after hearing gunfire as he ordered a lemonade at a nearby hamburger stand.

“I heard shots fired and (saw) people pointing down the street so I ran over,” said Webb, who was quickly joined by two other officers. “The suspect was standing at the mouth of one of the garages so we told him to come out with his hands up.”

Fred Araya, 63, of Pacoima, was arrested at the scene and taken to the Foothill station, where he was being held on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.

Police discovered the shop’s owner, Moti Arazi, 54, of Northridge, dead inside a Ford van parked in one of the shop’s garages. The shop’s manager, Michael Kinney, 38, of Winnetka, was taken to Holy Cross Medical Center with a gunshot wound to his shoulder.

LAPD Lt. Joe Garcia said the shootings apparently stemmed from a dispute over a business venture between the victims and Araya, which “escalated into the shooting.” A semi-automatic pistol was recovered at the scene.

Frantic family members rushed to the business only to learn that Arazi had been fatally shot.

“Where’s my father? Where’s my father?” screamed a woman, described by customers as Arazi’s daughter.

“He was a wonderful man,” said another woman, who described herself as one of Arazi’s daughters, but asked that she not be identified further.

News of the slaying shocked friends and customers who estimated that Arazi had been operating his business from the Pacoima location for 20 years or more.

“He had integrity,” said Mary Avery, a longtime customer. “If I was unsatisfied, I’d bring my car back and he’d do it again until it was right.”

“Moti was a real nice man,” said Daniel Rodriguez, 21, who was with his 2-year-old son at the same nearby hamburger stand where Webb heard the shots. “We had just gotten our food when we heard ‘pop, pop, pop,’ ” Rodriguez said. “At that point I threw my little boy over the counter.”

Rodriguez said he watched as Webb ran to the scene and ordered the gunman to get down. He said he also saw Kinney run across the street and collapse in front of the station.

Arazi, Rodriguez said, had been a friend of his father’s for roughly 30 years.

“Moti worked really hard,” Rodriguez said. “He was just trying to make an honest living.”