HUNTINGTON BEACH : Slain Liquor Store Owner Leaves Wife, 2 Sons

A 51-year-old father of two was shot and killed Monday night during a robbery attempt at the Lakewood liquor store he owned, neighbors and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officials said.

Gary Son was shot once in the upper torso at 10 p.m. by two men wearing ski masks and gloves in a robbery attempt at 100 Proof Liquor. He died a short time later at Lakewood Regional Medical Center, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said.

The assailants fled. It was unknown Tuesday what was taken or whether there were witnesses to the shooting, the spokeswoman said.

The Sons had moved in December from a two-story Huntington Beach house to a smaller home just blocks away because they were having trouble making ends meet, neighbors said.

Neighbors said Son and his wife, Jane, both worked long hours at the Lakewood store, in the 5600 block of South Street. The couple had two teen-age sons, she said.

“They were hard-working, very nice people,” said one neighbor in the Sons’ old neighborhood, where they lived for about two years. “She’d be here when the kids came home, and then she’d go to work at the store.”

The neighbor, who would not give her name, described Gary Son as a considerate man who often called to warn her when she forgot to close her garage door.