4 Men Are Arrested in Attack on Clerk : Crime: Each is held on $500,000 bail. The employee was stabbed more than 20 times despite offering no resistance.
WEST HILLS — Four men have been arrested on suspicion of stabbing and kicking a convenience store clerk--who had offered no resistance--more than 20 times during a robbery in West Hills, Los Angeles police said Thursday.
Two Simi Valley brothers--Jason Garcia, 20, and Carlos Ramon Garcia, 20--and Chatsworth residents David Michael Delahanty, 18, and Frank Erik Kaatz, 19, were in custody at the West Valley Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail each on suspicion of attempted murder and robbery, Detective Rick Swanston said.
Detectives arrested the men Wednesday for the attack last Saturday on Amolak Singh Saini, 27, a clerk at a 7-Eleven store at 22821 Saticoy St., Swanston said. Saini was working alone in the store about 1:45 a.m. when four young men walked in, hopped the counter and began stabbing the clerk.
Police said Saini, who had fled his native India because he believed that his life was in danger, was dragged outside by two assailants who continued to stab and kick the clerk before leaving him for dead. Meanwhile, the other two men stole both cash registers along with beer and cigarettes.
The case is unusual, police said, because the assailants apparently never asked for money and just attacked the clerk.
“He would have given them whatever they asked for,†Swanston said. “They didn’t need to attack him.â€
Swanston said the crime apparently was not racially motivated. In their investigation, detectives considered possible racial motivations because of the brutality of the beating and because two of the assailants had close-cropped haircuts, similar to those that are the mark of racist skinhead gangs.
Several of the suspects admitted involvement in the crime, Swanston said, “but they wouldn’t tell us why.â€
Acting on a tip, police arrested the youths Wednesday morning. The Garcias and Delahanty were arrested at their jobs. Kaatz, who is unemployed, was arrested at his residence.
“The break in the case occurred when an acquaintance of the Garcia brothers overheard them saying they had been videotaped and that their faces had been shown on television,†Swanston said.
One other suspect is still being sought. Police believe that four men participated in the attack while a fifth, possibly Jason Garcia, waited in a car outside. Jason Garcia’s 1985 black Volkswagen was impounded by police because it matches witnesses’ descriptions of the getaway car.
Saini, who fled India in July because of sectarian violence and applied for political asylum, received authorization to work from the Immigration and Naturalization Service on March 25. The next day he began working at the 7-Eleven, his family said.
Saini was initially in critical condition but has since improved. On Thursday, he said he hoped to be released from the hospital next week.
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