(FL) Store Owner Shoots Alleged Robber

[Drizzt]

Store Owner Shoots Alleged Robber

By Mark Spain
First Coast News

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Marvin's Electronics had been free from violence for at least 18 years. On Wednesday afternoon that would all change.

"I really can't go into details, but it was a legitimate shoot," said store owner Doug Freeman. Freeman said he shot the man out of fear for his life and the lives of his employees.

"I had 911 on the phone as it was happening and he went for his waistband," said Freeman. Only minutes before, employees said the man had confronted them in the front office.

"He was asking for a cell phone charger and money. He was acting suspicious. We went into a back room where we watched him on the tv camera," said one of the workers.

A short time later, Freeman said he grabbed his gun and went to the area where the man was. His 7-year-old daughter was also in the store along with the other employees in the back.

"I felt very scared. You got a seven-year-old telling you this man won't leave me and just keeps trailin' her," said Charlotte Freeman, the girl's mother and Freeman's wife.

Police are still investigating whether the suspect had a weapon or not. He was taken to Shands Jacksonville with life threatening injuries. Police also haven't said whether Freemen will face any charges.

Doug Freeman told First Coast News he was involved in a fatal shooting a number of years ago after a person attacked someone and he feared for that person's life. That shooting did not take place at the store.


http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/topstories/news-article.aspx?storyid=58558

 

[Drizzt]

Store owner shoots man he says was trying to rob him


The owner of a Murray Hill business said the man demanded money.


By BRIDGET MURPHY, The Times-Union


Doug Freeman had already called 911 to report a robbery in progress at his Jacksonville electronics store.

He had already sent several employees, his wife and 7-year-old daughter to another part of the Murray Hill business.

He had already watched from a surveillance set-up as the suspicious man kept roaming around, looking left, looking right, constantly fidgeting, but somehow never walking back out the front door as Freeman hoped.

So when Freeman opened fire at close range, five bullets from his .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun hitting the man, the store owner said he did it for one reason only.

"I just felt he left me no other choice," the 39-year-old owner of Marvin's Electronics said Wednesday, the shock from the noontime confrontation still fresh hours later.

The man demanded money, said he'd just gotten out of jail and looked "cracked out," Freeman said. In one hand, the man held what looked like a cell phone, the store owner recalled.

But when the man's other hand went up under his shirt and then down in his waistband to a bulge Freeman thought could be a gun, the store owner made up his mind.

He'd fire first.

"I shot him," Freeman said. Seconds later, police arrived.

"He fell out the door and he almost fell into an officer's arms," the store owner said.

Police didn't arrest Freeman, but also didn't say if the suspected robber had been armed. The man, identified as Vincent Hudson, 26, of nearby Post Street, was at Shands Jacksonville hospital late Wednesday for treatment of injuries police said were life-threatening. The investigation into the incident at the store at 933 Edgewood Ave. S. is continuing, police spokesman Ken Jefferson said.

Freeman said he was confident the shooting was justifiable. And he said it wasn't his first.

About 15 years ago, while working for a repo company, he defended his wife, Charlotte, from a knife-point attack during a job on Powers Avenue. He said he shot and killed the attacker but also wounded Charlotte, then his girlfriend.

She applauded her husband's actions Wednesday, saying Freeman had not only his family but his employees' safety in mind. The suspected robber also followed their daughter around the store for a short time before everyone was able to take cover, the woman said.

By the time bullets started flying, the little girl was hiding under a technician's bench in another part of the store. It was near where about a half-dozen employees hid, some of them also dialing 911.

Hours later, Freeman was still deciding if he'd open his store today, when a security company will install new electronic locks on the front door. As for Wednesday night, the store owner said he was "fixin' to go to happy hour" to try to unwind after a day like almost no other.

He said he hoped the man he shot would recover. As long as, the store owner added, the man never made his way back to his store.

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/060106/met_22010937.shtml

 

[joab]

the store owner said he was "fixin' to go to happy hour" to try to unwind

Although all in all an unbiased report they get in that one thing to try to point out that he was a hillbilly.

Not really enough info to judge whether it was a good shoot or not.
But at least there is a surveillance and 911 tape for the cops to review so that does add some credibility to his account.