Slaying Is Third in Santa Monica Since Monday
A man was killed during a liquor store robbery Saturday in Santa Monica, police said, the third fatal shooting in the seaside community in less than a week.
It was the seventh homicide of the year in a city that experienced only one in 1997.
Saturday’s shooting occurred about 4:45 p.m. at Eddie’s Liquor at 20th Street and Pico Boulevard, not far from Santa Monica City College, police said.
The motive remained unclear late Saturday. Police did not release the name of the victim.
Two people were fatally shot in Santa Monica on Monday. The first was Omar Sevilla, a resident of Culver City, gunned down as he walked along Pico. In an unrelated crime, German tourist Horst Fietze was shot as he walked near the Loews Beach Hotel.
On Friday, a man and a woman were arrested, held for 17 hours and then released in the Fietze shooting, which received international attention.
Fietze, a 50-year-old resident of the tiny city of Loebau in eastern Germany, was taking a late-evening stroll with his wife on Appian Way when they were accosted by three men and a woman. The assailants demanded money.
Sevilla had celebrated his 22nd birthday just hours before he was killed.
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