A California store clerk was run over and killed by a suspected shoplifter as he attempted to rob the business on Wednesday.
The incident happened at a Giant Discount store in South El Monte in the San Gabriel Valley around 12:18 p.m., according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office.
The alleged robber reportedly asked the victim, Steve Yaghoubi, for a $10 box of masks and walked out without paying. Yaghoubi and his brother, Jim Yaghoubi, followed the man into the parking lot, where a physical altercation broke out.
“Doors open, two other guys exit the car, and one of them punches my brother in the head, he holds his head and he goes down,” Jim told ABC 7.
The three men then got back into the car and ran over Steve Yaghoubi as they backed out of a parking space, and then again while speeding off.
“The body under the car was turning, all the way from the front tire to the back tire,” Jim continued.
“I don’t know why this happened, honestly. I was there at the last minute of his life. I saw his face. I saw his eyes,” he said.
His brother was pronounced dead at the scene.
The store owner said the men were in a four-door light blue Honda, but a description of the suspects has not yet been made available.
Lieutenant Michael Modica with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department called the crime a “senseless act of violence, especially for such a minor item, for someone to lose their life it’s very senseless.”
Many in the El Monte community mourned the man’s death.
John said his brother didn’t like people stealing.
“If somebody asked to give him something, he would give it to them,” he said. John said he lost another brother to a senseless act of violence outside his Anaheim home in Orange County.
His brother was gardening four years ago when he was beaten to death by a white supremacist, he said, adding he’s afraid to tell his mother about what happened.
“I’m afraid to tell her. I don’t know what to tell her. I was with her all night last night and her eyes were puffy from crying for the first one,” he said.