Shoplifting Attempt Ends in Gunfire

Would-be shoplifters fired several shots during an aborted midday theft at a BestBuy store in Atwater Village on Thursday, sending dozens of people scrambling for cover in an incident that conjured up images of a deadly shootout in Van Nuys last summer.

No one was injured in Thursday’s shooting when two men loaded stereo equipment and other merchandise into a shopping cart and made their way to the back of the store at about noon, said Los Angeles Police Det. Bob Lopez.

The men tried to leave the building on Los Feliz Boulevard near the Golden State Freeway through a pair of back doors, but found that the doors were locked, Lopez said.

They tried to get store employees to open the door, the detective said, but the employees refused. One of the men pulled out a semiautomatic handgun and fired four to seven shots at the door, Lopez said.

The gunshots failed to open the doors, and the two men, estimated by police to be 18 to 25, ran through the front door, investigators said. Both were still at large late Thursday.

“One minute I’m shopping for a Britney Spears CD for my daughter, the next minute I’m ducking for cover,” said J.R. Ongkeko of Glendale.

Ongkeko said he heard at least four “piercing” popping sounds and quickly recognized them as gunfire. He and about 20 other people in the store’s music section crouched low and scurried outside to safety.

For all of the fear he felt, Ongkeko quickly steadied himself and went shopping at a Costco store in the same mall, as did many others.

Dan Ortiz, who had also been in the store, said BestBuy employees helped maintain calm.

“People were running out of the building quickly,” he said. “It could have been chaos in there. But the employees were directing us which way to go. They were very courageous.”

An attempted robbery at a Van Nuys Costco store in August killed one man and injured three others. Robbers attempting to hold up an armored security guard in the parking lot of the store shot into a crowd of shoppers, killing Owen Alexander Wolf, 29, of Studio City.