LOS ANGELES (AP) — After years of addiction, Matthew Hirsch was finally sober. He landed a stable job working overnight shifts at a 7-Eleven in Southern California, lived with his girlfriend in a nearby apartment and spoke to his father every day.
But then, around 4:15 a.m. Monday, a masked shooter gunned down the 40-year-old clerk inside the convenience store. Authorities say it was one of five — and possibly as many as six — robberies committed by the same gunman at 7-Eleven stores across the region, senseless attacks that left two dead and three wounded.
The robberies occurred across a five-hour span July 11 — or 7/11, the day when the national 7-Eleven brand celebrates its anniversary — and prompted the parent company to urge Los Angeles-area employees to close their stores Monday and Tuesday nights for safety.
The tragedy left Hirsch’s father reeling on Tuesday. Jim Hirsch had long feared his son’s death would come from another heroin overdose. Still, he always had an open-door policy for “Matt” at his childhood home.
“I’d walk into his room at night and see needles,” Hirsch told The Associated Press. “Do I throw him out to die under a bridge? Or let him overdose in the house?”
But his son turned his life around more than a year ago, Jim Hirsch said, and sobered up as “he slowly straightened himself out.” He began working at the 7-Eleven in Brea about six months ago, juggling his job and his recovery.
“He hadn’t had time to enjoy a normal life,” his father said. “He goes through a struggle for goodness and it ends in a shooting.”
Investigators haven’t determined what led to Hirsch’s death in Brea, or what sparked the attacks in Ontario, Upland, Riverside, Santa Ana and La Habra.
“I think the only person to answer that would be the suspect,” said Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback.
Hirsch’s death occurred after authorities believe the gunman gravely wounded a customer in Riverside and then fatally shot Matthew Rule, 24, outside a Santa Ana store. After those three shootings, the suspect then shot two people at a store in La Habra before disappearing.
Armed robberies also occurred at stores in Ontario and Upland shortly before the shootings, but police haven’t determined whether the Upland one was carried out by the same suspect.
Authorities in Ontario, Brea and Upland shared images of a masked man wearing what appeared to be the same black sweatshirt with a hood over his head. The sweatshirt had white lettering with green leaves on the front.
Monday was 7-Eleven Inc.’s 95th anniversary and Railsback said the date of the attacks was no accident.
“There’s no way it can be a coincidence of it being 7-Eleven, July 11,” he said.
In a statement, the national company said: “Our hearts remain with the victims and their loved ones, and our focus continues to be on Franchisee, associate and customer safety.”
The first robbery happened around midnight Monday morning in Ontario, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Los Angeles.
Then, about 45 minutes later, an armed gunman stole a few items and $400 to $500 in cash from a store in the neighboring city of Upland.
About an hour after the Upland robbery and 25 miles (40 kilometers) away in Riverside, an armed gunman robbed the 7-Eleven clerk, then shot a customer, gravely wounding the victim, Railsback said.
Another shooting occurred around 3:20 a.m., about 24 miles (39 kilometers) away, in Santa Ana. There, officers found the 24-year-old Rule dead in the 7-Eleven parking lot. The victim did not work at the store and surveillance video shows the suspect dropping items — believed to be the victim’s belongings while fleeing, police said.
About 40 minutes later, Hirsch was fatally shot in Brea and less than an hour later, around 4:55 a.m., officers discovered two gunshot victims at a store in nearby La Habra. Those two victims are expected to survive.
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News Researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed.
