Armed robberies at Montclair 7-Eleven and Culver City mini-mart may be same suspect

A clerk at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Montclair was pistol-whipped during a robbery late Thursday night, and the same robber is suspected in a Culver City mini-mart robbery earlier in the evening. 

RELATED: Montclair 7-Eleven clerk pistol-whipped during brazen robbery

For employees of the 7-Eleven on Holt and Ramona in Montclair, it's been a tense day. 

Video from Thursday night's robbery shows a masked man walking into the convenience store and attempting to steal money from the register, but when the cashier couldn't get the register open quick enough, the suspect pistol whipped him, causing the cashier to hit his head on the counter as he fell to the ground. 

"I felt bad. I was like, 'Oh, crap! What do I do?'" the store manager, identified only as JD said. 

In the security video, the manager can be seen behind the checkout counter, witnessing the robbery. 

"We were just going to let it go, but when he got hit, it was over with that," the store manager said. 

He asked that CBSLA not show his face on camera since the suspect who pistol whipped his employee got away before police showed up, adding that the cashier is recovering from assault, but that he might be too traumatized to return to work. 

"All I heard from him over the phone was, 'I'm gonna go home and kiss my kid and that was it," the store manager said. 

Just an hour and a half earlier, a masked man wearing what appears to be the exact same outfit and Washington Nationals hat, held another cashier at gunpoint inside a mini-mart on Overland Avenue in Culver City. That panicked employee managed to get the register open and the suspect stole about $500 in cash. 

Culver City police believe this suspect is responsible for similar robberies in SoCal, but they're not confirming just yet if it's the same suspect from the Montclair robbery. 

"Oh, I hope they catch all the guys, even the ones in Culver City. I don't want anyone feeling how we felt yesterday," JD said. 

Investigators said the suspect is a 20 to 25-year-old Hispanic male, who's 6 feet and 6 foot 2 inches tall. The Nationals hat he's wearing says Diablos on the side.  

The 7-Eleven store manager said that the theft problem is so out of control nowadays that it only took a few minutes for his store to be targeted again. 

"Twenty, 30 minutes after that, the second cops leave, another guy tries to run out with two 12 packs." 

Montclair police are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.