`LOTTO BANDIT' SHOT TO DEATH; POLICE KILL SUSPECT DURING 5TH HOLDUP.

Byline: Yvette Cabrera Daily News Staff Writer

Police shot and killed a gunman, nicknamed the ``Lotto Ticket Bandit,'' during a surveillance early Sunday morning of a Van Nuys convenience store that he had robbed numerous times, police said.

Plainclothes officers shot the gunman as he attempted for the fifth time to rob a 7-Eleven store in the 7000 block of Van Nuys Boulevard, according to Lt. Anthony Alba, spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department.

``It was apparent that this person would continue to hit this store so it was imperative to stop him before he got violent with the clerk,'' Alba said.

The suspect had been dubbed the ``Lotto Ticket Bandit'' because he asked for cash and lottery tickets during all of his previous robberies.

``I understand that he may have even cashed some of his winning lotto tickets at the same store with a different clerk,'' Alba said.

The gunman was identified only as a male in his mid-20s, but because he did not have identification on him the Coroner's Office will have to determine his name, Alba said.

Sunday morning shortly after 12:30 a.m. the robber pointed a small-caliber handgun at the store's clerk, took cash from the register then forced the clerk to a back room, according to police.

It was then that plainclothes Detective Keith Hunter, a 13-year LAPD veteran, identified himself and fired at the gunman once ``fearing for his life and that of the clerk,'' according to an LAPD press release.

The suspect, who had been hit by Hunter's gunfire, ran out the store's front door and into the parking lot where other plainclothes officers ordered him to drop his gun, according to police.

``Again the suspect pointed his gun at police officers,'' the LAPD press release said.

Officers Chris McKinney, an eight-year veteran, and Don Schmidt, a two-year veteran, each fired their weapons and hit the suspect with gunfire.

Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics pronounced the gunman dead at the scene.

The store clerk was not injured and there were no other customers in the store at the time, Alba said.

``We're certainly happy to take somebody like that off the streets, especially if he's armed with a gun,'' he said. ``We're very happy that no innocent parties or police officers were injured as a result.''