Man Killed at Police Stakeout Identified

A man shot to death by police, allegedly as he robbed a convenience store at gunpoint, was identified Monday as 20-year-old Fred Sammons.

The Van Nuys man was killed early Sunday outside a 7-Eleven store on Van Nuys Boulevard when he aimed a handgun at Los Angeles Police Department officers who were staking out the store, the officers said.

Police suspect Sammons was the so-called “Lotto Bandit” who robbed the same 7-Eleven on four previous occasions, escaping with cash, cigarettes and lottery tickets.

Plainclothes officers were watching the store in the 7000 block of Van Nuys Boulevard on the chance that the Lotto Bandit would strike again.

Sammons’ mother, Sandra, said her son was a regular at the convenience store, which is about three blocks from their Lennox Avenue apartment. “He couldn’t have been the Lotto Bandit,” she said. “Every clerk in that store knows my son.”

LAPD Capt. Valentino Paniccia said a store surveillance video shows Sammons holding a weapon in the most recent robbery attempt and investigators are confident that he committed the earlier crimes.

Sammons was shot about 12:30 a.m., after he entered the convenience store and allegedly tried to force a clerk into a back room.

Van Nuys Division Det. Keith Hunter entered the store and confronted Sammons, he said.

“Fearing for his life and that of the clerk, [the detective] fired his duty weapon, striking the suspect,” according to a Police Department statement issued Sunday.

The wounded Sammons then ran into the parking lot where he was confronted by Officers Chris McKinney, Don Schmidt and Craig Hewitt, police said.

The officers commanded him to drop his weapon, police said. When he failed to comply, and instead pointed the gun at police, they opened fire.

Craig Harvey, chief investigator of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, said Sammons was struck several times by pistol bullets and shotgun balls.

Sandra Sammons said her son had worked as security guard at a nearby Wells Fargo Bank branch until about a year ago, but was currently unemployed. His girlfriend is due to deliver their baby soon, she said.