Families at Odds Over Slaying of 2

The shooting of two unarmed black men by a Latino storeowner in South Los Angeles moved into its spin stage Wednesday, as both sides held news conferences organized by newfound spokesmen.

But at the end of the day, not much was clearer about what happened at the Super Discount Store, in the 6700 block of South San Pedro Street, shortly before closing time Sunday night.

About the only thing everyone seems to agree on is that the owner, Rovidio “Ruben” Espana, was well-known for treating people of all races with respect and had been charged with killing two frequent customers.

Espana, 31, a Guatemalan immigrant living in Baldwin Park, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one of being a felon in possession of a handgun; he was convicted in 1994 of auto theft. He remains jailed on $4-million bail.

Each side said Wednesday that the shooting was not a racial incident -- but suggested the other side was fomenting racial tension. There were calls for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to intercede and for the store, which has been closed since the shooting, to be shuttered permanently.

About 2 p.m. Wednesday, Espana’s wife, Lorena, stood before a phalanx of reporters and TV cameras in downtown Los Angeles for a news conference arranged by her attorney, Miguel Garcia.

She reiterated her statement that her husband had been skittish because black gang members had been demanding protection money since their store opened three years ago. She said she didn’t know whether either of the two men killed in the shooting was among the alleged extortionists, but she added that her husband had never paid the protection money.

Lorena Espana, who was not in the store at the time of the shootings, said that on Saturday, one of the two killed, Courtney Whaley, 17, had been in the store and grown angry that her sister, working as clerk, was speaking Spanish to another woman.

Espana said Whaley thought the women were talking about him and that he made a vulgar sexual remark to her sister.

As he left the store, “he said she was going to regret having spoken Spanish in front of him because he was a gang member,” Lorena Espana said.

She said Whaley and William Armistead, 23, returned to the store Sunday evening. Her husband asked them not to use vulgarity with his employees and thought the issue was resolved. But the pair returned two hours later, she said, talking loudly. Armistead, she said, tried to hit her husband.

“He was scared, and his reaction was to defend himself,” Lorena Espana said.

That version was hotly denied two hours later, and 70 city blocks away, by the mothers of Whaley and Armistead.

They stood beside a virtually identical phalanx of reporters and television cameras at a news conference organized by Najee Ali, an activist in the black community, outside Espana’s store.

“You know how they say [on television], ‘I just can’t believe this is happening to me.’ I’m that one right now,” said Shirley Armistead. “I cannot believe that this is happening to me, that this man who owns this store killed my son.”

She said her son was not a gang member, was unarmed and often patronized the store.

The Whaley family denied that Courtney Whaley went to the store Saturday.

“Saturday, my kids gave me a birthday party,” said Stephanie Blackwell, Whaley’s mother. “All my kids were at home all day Saturday and all Saturday evening.”

She reiterated the family’s insistence that the only time Courtney Whaley left the house all weekend was to go to Espana’s store to buy juice shortly before it closed Sunday night.

“These two young men, no matter what they allegedly said, did not deserve to be shot down since they were both unarmed,” Ali said. The Espanas “have a lawyer now who is obviously a master of spin control who is trying to spin this issue into their favor and make it a racial issue.”

Ali also called for the store to be closed. “We want to make sure this family does not benefit financially or make any money off this community,” he said, also urging that no one take revenge on the family or the store.

“I don’t think [closing the store] will resolve anything,” said Lorena Espana, adding that she plans to reopen.