Store Owner Held After Customers Shot, Killed

In the racially tense South Los Angeles neighborhood where he ran a discount store, Robidio “Ruben” Espana got along with everyone, residents said.

So neighbors Monday said they were mystified about police reports that Espana -- who is Latino -- allegedly shot and killed two black young men who were frequent customers.

After the Sunday night shooting, police arrested Espana, 31, and charged him with two counts of murder in the deaths of William Armistead, 23, and Courtney Whaley, 17.

Neighbors said Espana’s Super Discount Store, in the 6700 block of South San Pedro Street, was an oasis of racial camaraderie in a neighborhood riven by antagonism between Latinos and blacks.

In the two years since he’d opened his store, Espana had developed an easygoing reputation that few other merchants in the area enjoyed. He forgave customers’ minor debts, and gave children quarters to play the store’s video machine, neighbors said. Black and Latino youths went to the store frequently, without a problem.

On Monday, children of both races again congregated outside, this time wondering what went wrong.

“He was a good person. He treated me right. Everybody came to this store,” said Tywan Willis, 18, who worked stocking shelves for Espana for a year. “I don’t know what happened.”

Police said they aren’t sure what provoked the shooting and late Monday were still sifting through information in the case.

Lt. Paul Vernon said detectives believe Espana had a confrontation with Armistead and Whaley on Sunday evening. After they left, Espana armed himself with a revolver and shot the two when they returned.

“He was apparently scared of them and thought worse was about to happen,” said a law enforcement source.

Whaley staggered down the street with bullet holes in his chest. According to his family, a friend spotted him and drove him to his mother’s house five blocks away.

He was taken by ambulance to California Hospital Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Espana fled the store. His sister-in-law discovered Armistead’s body in the store and called police. Espana’s family persuaded him to surrender, police said.

The investigators’ account after interviewing Espana, however, differed from that given by Whaley’s family.

Whaley, who had just enrolled at Compton City College to study criminal justice, had spent the day at home with a cold, said Ladesha Whaley, his sister.

Shortly before 9 p.m., she said, he rode his bike to the store before it closed “to buy some apple and orange juice and was shot before he got inside the store,” she said, basing her assertion on conversations she had with a witness.

Less than half an hour later, Ladesha Whaley said, her brother was driven home with bullet holes in his chest.

She said her brother was friends with Armistead but hadn’t seen him all day. Whaley said her brother shopped often at Espana’s store and was friendly with him.

“Everybody knew Courtney in the neighborhood,” she said. “Everybody liked Courtney.”

The neighborhood, home to both Latinos and blacks, has been tense for a long time, residents said.

Ladesha Whaley said Latinos have occasionally yelled racist epithets at her and others, and her brother fought off a group of Latinos who attacked him in the neighborhood a few months ago.

“The furthest I’d walk from here is to that gas station,” said Andre Nickerson, Whaley’s brother-in-law, indicating a gas station a couple of blocks away. “Other than that, I drive.”

Still, Nickerson said he’d never had any problems at Espana’s store.

“Anybody and everybody would go in that store -- blacks and Mexicans,” he said. “I’d go to that store easier than I would to a store closer by.”