Portillo allegedly stabbed Jagjeet to death and then fled from the scene.
The Modesto Police Department arrested 23-year-old Lester Portillo on May 11, as a suspect for fatally stabbing Sikh Indian Jagjeet Singh, an Asian Indian store clerk in Modesto, CA, over the purchase of cigarettes.
The police took the suspect in custody on Thursday after a search warrant was served at his southwest Modesto home. He was later lodged in the Stanislaus County Jail on charges of murder. He is currently being held without bail. Portillo had not been put on a trial as of May 12.
Modesto police said Lester Portillo, 23, stabbed Hatch Food and Gas’s clerk Jagjeet Singh, 32, on May 5 after an altercation over the buying cigarettes.
On the night of May 4, Portillo entered the Hatch Food and Gas convenience store as clerk Jagjeet Singh was closing up. According to police reports, Portillo approached Singh at the register and asked to purchase a packet of cigarettes. However, Jagjeet refused to hand it over because the customer was unable to produce the mandated identity card for making the purchase. Reportedly, the man left the store in a fury, mouthing racist abuses and warning Jagjeet of dire consequences.
Later, when Jagjeet went out after a few minutes, Portillo returned and allegedly stabbed Jagjeet to death and then fled from the scene.
Though Modesto Police initially determined that there were two suspects involved in the incident and released four surveillance videos, which depicted two differently-dressed men. The first suspect was described as a Hispanic male adult wearing a black and white beanie cap, black t-shirt, white zip-up sweater, gray pants and black shoes. The second one, captured in a surveillance camera image inside the store, depicts a tall, broadly built Hispanic man wearing brown cargo shorts and a white sleeveless t-shirt, yet they later confirmed that it was Portillo himself who changed clothes before he came back to the store to stab Singh.
According to police reports, the Modesto Police Department received a call at 11.50 p.m. on May 4 from the Hatch Food and Gas convenience store. The caller reported to 911 that the store clerk, Jagjeet Singh, was possibly having a seizure. Medical aid dispatched to the scene determined that Singh was not having a seizure, but in fact was stabbed multiple times.
Singh was rushed to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries, according to police.
According to sources, Jagjeet – alias Jagga – had been living with his sister and brother-in-law in Modesto ever since he came to the United States about a year ago. He is survived by his wife, Kuljeet Kaur, and two sons – Ishmeet Singh, 9, and Dilpreet Singh, 7, – who reside in Kapurthala. Jagjeet has three siblings – two younger sisters and an elder brother settled in France.
His father, Mohinder Singh, was inconsolable. “Jagjeet was a kind-hearted and hardworking person. We will miss him,†he said Hindustan Times. “He went to the US one-and-a-half years ago to support the family. We took loans from relatives to send him there.â€
Singh’s niece, Navjeet Kaur, has created a Fundly.com site, http://bit.ly/2qUNIP0, to honor her uncle and to raise funds to support his widow and their two young children. The site has raised more than $5,600.