Gunmen Kill 1, Wound 2 in Robbery Attempt at Market

Two masked gunmen killed a grocery clerk and injured two store owners during a robbery attempt Friday afternoon at a neighborhood market.

The robbers confronted the three near a cash register at Central Market about 1 p.m. and demanded money, police said, adding that before the victims could respond, both robbers opened fire.

“I heard the guy say, ‘Give me the money,’ and then they shot really quickly five times,” said butcher Javier Torres.

Torres and a beer vendor ushered several women and children to the back of the store. The vendor, who asked not to be identified, said he heard two quick shots, followed by three or four more.

“These guys didn’t have a chance,” he said of the victims. The robbers “just started shooting.”

Witnesses said the killers sped away in a gray car. Police said they took no money.

Across from the market in the 500 block of North Ventura Avenue, Ray Reyes, owner of Ray’s Avenue Auto Parts, said he heard three shots and saw the clerk stagger a few feet from the store, drop to his knees and collapse in the parking lot.

Ventura Fire Department Capt. Mike Vaughan, who was among the first on the scene, said the clerk, Alejandro Alvarez, 35, “was unconscious and didn’t have a pulse. He had a through-and-through shot in the torso.” He died at the scene.

Inside, Vaughan found a second victim shot in the torso and a third with gunshot wounds to his arm or hand. They were identified as brothers Mohan and Balbir Singh, co-owners of the market.

Mohan Singh, 42, was in critical condition at Ventura County Medical Center with multiple gunshot wounds. Balbir Singh, 44, was treated in the emergency room and released, according to a nursing supervisor.

Business associate Surinder Sunner said the brothers bought the business about 18 months ago. They previously lived in New York.

“One of our vendors was in the store at the time” of the attack, Sunner said. “He said the robber walked in with a mask on his face and said, ‘Give me all your money.’ Mohan was smiling, thinking maybe he was joking. And [the robber] didn’t give him the chance to do anything. He just started shooting.”

Weeping family members and store customers gathered outside the market.

“The people who did this do not have hearts,” said the dead man’s uncle, Octavio Alvarez. “We are all hurting. We all loved him very much.”

Alvarez’s wife, Maritza, and some of his eight brothers and sisters huddled across the street. When a senior deputy coroner’s investigator confirmed Alvarez’s death, older sister Elvia Alvarez burst into tears.

“He was a good brother, a good friend and a good parent,” she said.

Alvarez moved to Ventura about 11 years ago and had worked as a ranch hand before starting at the market a little over a year ago, family members said. He and his wife have two daughters, ages 10 and 13.

Gerardo Jurado, 18, said his uncle liked to play soccer and spend time with his extended family, most of whom live in Ventura.

Frequent customers described Alvarez as a hard-working employee who always greeted them with a smile.

“He was so sweet,” said Rosie Huerta, who shopped at the market daily.

“Sometimes we didn’t have enough money to pay him, and he would help us.”

Ventura resident Lucy Gonzalez, 32, had been in the store about 15 minutes before the shooting. She said Alvarez jokingly asked if she would be back later for some beer.

“I said, ‘Maybe after work for my husband,’ ” she recalled. “I can’t believe it. Fifteen minutes--I’ll never see him anymore.”

Authorities have a tape from a security camera in the market but had made no arrests.

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Times photographer Steve Osman and staff writers Matt Surman, Margaret Talev, David Kelly, Timothy Hughes and Tina Dirmann contributed to this story.