LOS ANGELES—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….