Hit-and-Run Victim’s Death Shocks Friends

A gas station attendant was two days from finishing his cashier training at the Texaco Star Mart on East La Palma Avenue when he was killed by a customer trying to leave without paying for a $41 tank of gas, friends and police said Friday.

Syed Iqbal Ahmed Shah, known as “Alex,” had begun training on the station’s computerized cash register last week and was supposed to begin work Monday as the head cashier at a new station farther down East La Palma Avenue.

“It’s mind-boggling,” said Joe Malik, Shah’s employer of three years. “It was in broad daylight. So many people were there, and this guy had the nerve to do it.”

The customer had filled up his white Isuzu stake-bed truck Thursday morning and gone inside to pay for it and some food. But his credit card was denied, said Betty Wilson, a cashier who was working with Shah.

The customer called someone, whom clerks assumed would bring him money. Instead, he made a dash for the door, Wilson said.

“Alex was watching him,” she said. “He was being a good employee. He knew the guy wasn’t going to pay.”

Gil Ficke, the owner of the Texaco, said employees are told not to chase thieves.

“He knew the business,” Ficke said. “Why he went outside, I don’t know. We train our people not to do that. Try to get a license plate number, that’s it.”

Apparently that is what Shah was trying to do when the truck made a U-turn, pinned him between the stake-bed and a white van that was filling up at a different pump and crushed his lungs, broke his pelvis and caused severe head injury, police said. He died two hours later at Western Medical Center-Anaheim.

The customer sped from the scene, plowing through the station’s flower bed, crushing a city sign, hitting a Chevrolet Blazer and jumping the median on East La Palma Avenue.

“I was in disbelief,” manager Gus Ficke said. “Crazy things happen at gas stations.”

Police traced the credit card to Juan Carlos Gonzalez, 20, of Hacienda Heights and found him being treated for a broken nose at Queen of the Valley Hospital in West Covina. They arrested him on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and felony hit and run.

He is being held in Anaheim City Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail. He is to be arraigned Monday in Municipal Court in Fullerton.

Shah moved to the United States five years ago from Pakistan, where his three teenage daughters and wife, whom he saw three months ago, remain. He shared an apartment in Anaheim with his 22-year-old son, who is a student at Cal State Fullerton.

Shah was saving money to visit his family in Pakistan this year, said Anjum Malik, a friend who worked at another gas station. He planned to send his children a picture of himself on Friday.

“He kept everybody happy,” Malik said. “I can’t believe he went like that.”

Malik talked to Shah an hour before the incident and said he was drinking tea and chatting about his family.

“He was a great guy, one of the nicest I’ve known,” Joe Malik, his boss, said. “He was hard-working, punctual; everyone loved him. We’re very sorry to lose him.”

Shah’s employer is caring for Shah’s son and is making arrangements to have the body transported to Pakistan.

“It’s devastating,” he said. “This is the most unusual, horrifying thing I have ever experienced in my life.”