Grocer Won’t Be Charged in Shooting : Investigation: District attorney says the evidence is insufficient to prosecute the Lynwood shop owner. He wounded a 14-year-old.

No criminal charges will be filed against a Lynwood grocer who shot and critically wounded a teen-ager in an incident some activists called racially motivated, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office announced Thursday.

There is insufficient evidence to charge grocer Su Yong (Michael) Kim, who chased and shot 14-year-old Aldo Vega on April 2 after Vega and another youth ran from Kim’s store, allegedly without paying for cookies, authorities said.

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said his office declined to file charges because “no prosecutable crime occurred.” No jury would convict Kim on the available evidence, Garcetti said.

Because Kim is Korean American and Vega is Latino, some community activists said the shooting was racially motivated. They compared the incident to the 1991 fatal shooting of Latasha Harlins, 15, who was killed by a Korean American merchant in South-Central Los Angeles in a dispute over a $1.79 bottle of orange juice. Vega has recovered but walks with a cane.

The decision not to prosecute, Garcetti said, was made without regard to community activists who had demanded that Kim be tried.

“We’ve done what we thought was fair and proper given the law,” Garcetti said. He called the Sheriff’s Department investigation “very thorough, very fair.”

Lynwood Mayor Paul Richards said Thursday that escalating violence in urban neighborhoods--not the ethnic backgrounds of the grocer and the teen-ager--was the real issue in the shooting.

“The greater issue is violence,” he said. “Why are we so quick to use violence? Assuming the (district attorney’s) facts are correct, there is still something wrong when persons--regardless of race--feel comfortable using a gun as a response in this type of incident.”

Attorney Angela Oh, an activist in the Korean American community, said Thursday that high racial tensions in the Los Angeles area make it “understandable that people want to attach a racial meaning” to the shooting.

“But I really do not believe that’s what we have here,” she said.

Prosecutors said in a report issued Thursday that “the most reasonable interpretation of the available evidence” indicates that Kim, armed with a handgun, drove his car to follow Vega and Miguel Torres, 18, who had taken cookies and potato chips from Kim’s store without paying.

Kim confronted Vega and Torres on a nearby street, and said Torres pulled what he thought was a knife and threatened him, prosecutors said. About the same time, Kim told authorities, Vega raised his shirt as though he was pulling something from his waistband.

Prosecutors said Kim originally claimed he fired in self-defense, believing Vega was reaching for a weapon. Kim changed his story to say the gun accidentally discharged as he steadied it with both hands, they said.

Vega was hit by a single shot to the chest, and Kim drove him back to the store and called paramedics and sheriff’s deputies.

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Kim told investigators that he initially did not realize he had shot Vega, Garcetti said, and that account is bolstered by the fact that Kim called police to make an arrest at the store. A short time later, he called back and asked for paramedics.

An unidentified, independent witness saw Torres and Vega eating cookies after they left the store and also saw Torres eating cookies at the site of the shooting, after Kim had left with Vega, prosecutors said.

Nevertheless, Garcetti said, his office is unlikely to file shoplifting charges against either youth.

Vega later said he made no threatening gestures toward Kim, but an unidentified “independent eyewitness” said Vega’s pockets were pulled out and his shirt flipped up just before the shooting, prosecutors said. They added that Vega admitted to his relatives after the shooting that he had reached into his pocket to show Kim that he had no money.

Kim had the legal right to arm himself and make a citizen’s arrest if he believed a crime had been committed, Garcetti said. He also had a right, according to Garcetti, to point the gun at Vega and Torres.