Store Owner Is Shot Dead After Confronting 2 Men

The owner of a mom-and-pop grocery store in San Gabriel was shot to death in what authorities said Sunday was a robbery but the family called a hate crime.

Adel Karas, 48, of Arcadia was struck in the upper body about 3:15 p.m. Saturday inside the International Market in the 1300 block of East Las Tunas Drive.

Two men had entered the store and picked up several items, said Sheriff’s Deputy Ron Bottomley. “A confrontation began between them and Karas,” Bottomley said. “They then shot him.”

Witnesses saw the two men get into a copper-colored Honda driven by a third man, Bottomley said. Karas staggered to the storefront and collapsed. He died at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.

“It was a robbery-homicide,” Bottomley said.

Dr. Rashad Wasef, Karas’ brother-in-law, said he thinks Karas was targeted because he was Egyptian American and mistaken as Muslim.

“He was shot point-blank. All the money was left intact. The drawer was full of 20s. It seems to be a hate crime,” he said.

Karas was a father of three whose wife is an anesthesiologist at White Memorial Medical Center in East Los Angeles, Wasef said. Karas had owned the store for more than two decades.

“He is loved by everyone,” said Nash Eskander, Karas’ cousin. The “drawer was full of money. What kind of robbery is that?”