Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

For Dairy Queen’s neighbors, day after shooting was almost business as usual

Dairy Queen

Cristina Chang

The Dairy Queen at 2595 S. Maryland Parkway remained closed Monday, Aug. 20, 2012, one day after an employee shot to death a sword-wielding man who had tried to rob the store.

Customers arriving Monday at a central valley Dairy Queen where a sword-wielding masked man was shot a day earlier during a robbery attempt were turned back by a sign saying, “Sorry We Are Closed.”

Just after noon Sunday, a man entered the Dairy Queen at 2595 S. Maryland Parkway, south of East Sahara Avenue, and threatened clerks with a sword, police said. An employee shot the robber twice, and he was pronounced dead later Sunday at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. Authorities identified him as Bong Kuk Pak, 36.

At the shopping center where the shooting took place, businesses mostly carried on as usual.

At Domino’s Pizza, assistant manager Erik Cordova said Carol Matteo, the 47-year-old who was arrested as an accomplice in the attempted robbery, had come into his store moments before shots were fired.

Matteo was twitching, as though she was nervous or on drugs, Cordova said. Matteo didn’t make eye contact with Cordova; she glanced at the menus for “two seconds at the most” before leaving, Cordova said.

The manager of Domino’s was walking to her car when she heard a window shatter at Dairy Queen, Cordova said. The window has been replaced.

Cordova later exited Domino’s and saw Matteo being taken out of Dairy Queen by Metro Police.

Cordova credits the window fortification on the counter at Domino's for possibly dissuading a robbery there.

“If we see something wrong, we just quickly shut it. Everything here’s all bulletproof,” he said, knocking on the windows.

One employee of a neighboring store, who declined to be identified, said the situation was “completely insane” and felt sorry for Christian Wehbe Jr., the Dairy Queen worker who police reports indicated shot Pak.

Cordova said a sense of fear comes as part of the business.

“It does make you a little bit uneasy,” he said of the attempted robbery. “It’s always in the back of your head. Are we going to get robbed today?”

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