SAN FRANCISCO—Police are still looking for a ski-masked robber who shot and killed a Korean American grocer Saturday morning after she complied with his demand for money.

“The whole community is in shock,” said Visitation Valley resident Marlene Tran of the death of Whai Sook Kim, 51, who was pronounced dead before noon at San Francisco General Hospital. Her husband, Yong Bong Kim, 53, was in the couple’s KC Market but was uninjured. The couple had just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary a few days earlier, according to Korean-language newspapers.

Police are seeking a black man in his 20s, about 5 foot 8 and of normal build, who fled with an accomplice after the shooting. Tran said that there was no indication that the incident had been race-related, saying, “I do not want to bring race into this. I hope it’s a simple opportunist case.”

Visitation Valley’s Asian American residents—who make up at least half of the district—have been skittish since the shooting, said Tran, who sits on the San Francisco Democratic Central Committee. A police officer, whom she identified as Simon Chang, came to talk with about 200 people who gathered Monday night, she said.

Police said Tuesday that they did not believe Kim’s slaying was in retaliation for the owners’ talking with authorities about a carjacking in front of the store two days before, as had been reported. Carl Bridges, 25, is in custody in connection with the incident, in which a ski-masked assailant snatched a neighborhood woman’s car at gunpoint as she was leaving the market.

Asked whether the motive for the shooting was linked to the carjacking, homicide investigator Mike Johnson said, “We don’t think so.” Referring to a San Francisco Chronicle article that suggested a link between the two, Johnson said: “That was the reporter—the reporter put two and two together and got six.”

KC Market stands at the corner of Wilde and Rutland, an area long plagued by petty drug dealing and other crime. “It’s not a very safe corner. People are always hanging around,” said Tran, who lives a block away.

“It’s not someone else’s tragedy; it’s our tragedy,” said Dr. Youn-Cha Shin Chey, executive director of Korean Center and president of the Intercultural Institute of California. “They immigrated in 1978, they have been working very hard to raise a family, be good citizens and good neighbors ... every citizen should somehow feel that it is our responsibility that our neighbor is victimized recklessly.

“We really have to deal with the root causes—economic equality, education, understanding our neighbors—to eliminate violence in a more tangible way.”

Family members held a vigil Tuesday night at the Garden Chapel in South San Francisco; while it was to have begun at 6 p.m., it was delayed 45 minutes because dozens of mourners continued to arrive. A friend of the family, who gave his name as Chris, said Kim’s family had taken the incident hard and that media attention had exacerbated stress.