Convenience store clerk shot to death

Ed Koch and Jen Lawson

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003 | 11:25 a.m.

A 28-year-old man was shot and killed early today in front of the North Las Vegas convenience store where he worked, police said.

North Las Vegas Police are seeking a man who was armed with a semiautomatic weapon and two potential witnesses, both of whom fled the scene.

They also want to speak to a man who entered the store about 10 seconds after the shooting. A store security video shows the man walking into the store, trying to get into the cash register and going to a cooler and stealing six to eight 40-ounce bottles of beer.

"He had to have seen (the shooting)," North Las Vegas Police spokesman Officer Justin Roberts said. "There's no way he could not have seen it."

The shooting occurred about 2:20 a.m. at the 7-Eleven store at 3533 N. Pecos Road.

North Las Vegas Police found the clerk with a gunshot wound in his chest. He was transported to the University Medical Center, underwent surgery and died at 5:42 a.m., Roberts said. The victim's name had not been released this morning.

Standing outside the store this morning, manager Becky Corbitt said the victim had worked the graveyard shift for a little over a month.

"He was just a real nice guy," said Corbitt, who was not at the store at the time of the shooting. "He was very quiet. I never heard him raise his voice to anyone."

She said she did not know why anyone would attack her employee. She described him as a father of four who was so dedicated to his children that he had their names tattooed on his body.

Roberts said the shooting appeared random. "Nothing was stolen from the victim and no drugs were found at the scene," Roberts said.

Early this morning, the clerk apparently was in front of the store cleaning the sidewalk and parking lot and talking to at least two store patrons when a light gray or off-white four-door automobile, possibly an Oldsmobile Cutlass, drove into the parking lot, Roberts said.

A man got out of the left rear door of the car with a semiautomatic handgun in his hand, exchanged a few words with the clerk, then shot about four times, striking the clerk at least once in the chest. Witnesses told police the gunman appeared to be in his late teens or early 20s.

The two people who had been talking to the clerk left, police said.

It is believed that one of those people is a truck driver.

He was driving an orange or light red Peterbilt tractor trailer with black letters on the cab. The tractor, pulling a white trailer, was seen northbound on Pecos after the shooting. The driver is believed to be a witness, not a suspect, Roberts said, noting that police want to question him.

The investigation is continuing.