Employee Stayed Overnight to Protect Against Break-Ins : Police Probe Slaying of Burglary Suspect at Service Station

A suspected burglar was fatally wounded Thursday by a 20-year-old gas station attendant who, because of repeated break-ins in recent weeks, was staying overnight with his wife at the Family Union Service Station in Westminster, police said.

David Ray Lewis, 24, of Westminster was “shot in the back,� according to a spokesman for the coroner’s office, reading from the “work card of investigator Joseph Luckey,� the senior deputy coroner who handled the case.

Police consulted the district attorney’s office Thursday to review the shooting, but the case remained under investigation, spokesmen for police and the prosecutor’s office said. A determination of whether the shooting was justified cannot be made until after all coroner and police reports have been completed, Westminster Police Sgt. Steve Martinez said.

A coroner’s spokesman said some tests may take up to six weeks to complete.

Lewis was pronounced dead at 3:37 a.m. at Fountain Valley Community Hospital, Westminster police spokesmen said, adding that he had been shot twice.

Lewis died from a gunshot that “lacerated the abdominal aorta (one of the major arteries leading from the heart) and caused massive hemorrhage,� the coroner’s spokesman said.

Michael G. Coughran, 20, of Huntington Beach, the gas station employee who police said fired the shot, was not arrested and could not be reached for comment.

About 12:30 a.m., police received a call of a burglary in progress, and responded to the service station on the northeast corner of Westminster Boulevard and Golden West Street, Martinez said.

Officers determined that Lewis had broken a window and entered the service station, where he confronted Coughran, and an argument ensued.

The only weapon recovered was the gun fired by Coughran, a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle, Martinez said.