The Armed Citizen® March 21, 2022

Armed Citizen® Today

A store clerk in Rock Island, Ill., defended customers when an armed trio allegedly robbed the business on Jan. 18, 2022.

Everything was normal that Tuesday evening at the Blackhawks Tobacco & Vape store, until three masked men made their way inside. One of the men produced a pistol and all three threatened the workers and patrons of the store, demanding merchandise. Unknown to the three crooks, however, was the fact that one of the clerks had his own pistol.

The inconspicuously armed clerk calmly waited as the armed men held up the store, later saying: "I was just thinking about trying to stay calm, stay still because they had the gun right in our faces." The robber with the pistol confronted the clerk, as he recounted: "This man looked me in the eyes and said, ‘You have kids at home? You have a family at home? I do. I wanna go home. Do you wanna go home tonight?'"

The clerk kept his composure and the trio continued their looting, until they began to make their way out of the store. As they were leaving, a car began to pull up into the parking lot just out front of the business. The crook with the pistol raised it and took aim at the car. When the clerk saw this, he decided it was time to act. He recounted: "As they were exiting the store, I saw him point the firearm towards a customer that was pulling up, and that’s when I emptied my magazine into him."

The clerk's shots fatally wounded the armed crook and injured one of his accomplices, who police found at the scene and took to the hospital in serious condition. The third suspect was still at large. The clerk was not charged in the shooting, with it being ruled a justifiable use of force, though he did quit his job afterward. (wifr.com, Rockford, Ill., 01/20/2022)

From the Armed Citizen® Archives - Feb. 16, 1987

An armed man walked into a Sherman Oaks, Calif., liquor store and demanded that the customers and a front clerk lie down on the floor. A teenage clerk working in the rear armed himself with a handgun, and, in a confrontation with the intruder, fatally wounded him. Police said the case would be treated as a justifiable homicide. (The Daily News, Van Nuys, Calif.)