Two shot in South Richmond store
A gunman who had wounded a shopkeeper and opened fire on several customers was stopped yesterday when another man shot him at the store in South Richmond, authorities said.
The violent attempted robbery took place shortly after 1 p.m. at the Golden Food Market at 2701 Jefferson Davis Highway, the same store where another man was shot last month -- and only three blocks from the scene of another robbery in June that left a shopkeeper dead.
Owners of as many as a dozen Jefferson Davis-area businesses flocked to the scene of the shooting, and many were rattled by such a brazen daylight attack, said Councilwoman Reva Trammell, whose 8th District includes the Jefferson Davis corridor.
Trammell, who arrived outside the store shortly after yesterday's shootings, described a frenzied scene. One man told Trammell that the man who had shot the robber was a guardian angel.
"Whoever did it probably saved their lives in there," Trammell said of the shooter.
Police did not identify anyone involved in yesterday's shootings.
The man who shot the robber is a friend of the store owner, and he was wearing a holster with a Western-style revolver, said Managing Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Tracy Thorne-Begland.
After the suspect shot the store owner and opened fire on patrons, the owner's friend shot the suspect once in the torso, took his gun and called police, Thorne-Begland said.
Thorne-Begland said it appeared that the shooting of the suspect was justified, although he emphasized that the investigation was in the early stages.
Police said they expect to file charges against the suspect.
The store owner's injuries did not appear life-threatening, authorities said, but the gunman's injuries were said to be life-threatening. No one else was hurt.
Anthony Gregory, who lives near Golden Food, said he was in the store about 15 minutes before the shootings, and that while he was there, he saw a man with a baby making a purchase.
Gregory said the owner told the baby, "Welcome to the world. This is a dangerous world, so be careful. But don't worry, God will protect you."
Police Cmdr. Steve Drew said officers had been patrolling up and down Jefferson Davis yesterday and recently have bolstered their presence in the area. He said it was unusual for a commercial robbery to happen so early in the day.
The previous shooting at Golden Food took place late the night of June 12. And three nights earlier, a co-owner of the Come and Go Food Market, which is about three blocks north of Golden Food on Jefferson Davis, was shot and killed in a robbery.
Authorities said it was too early to know whether any of the three shootings on Jefferson Davis are connected.
A few hours after yesterday's shootings, Said "Sam" Messaf, the man who was shot June 12 at Golden Food, was at the store to help another man shut down the market.
Messaf described how he had been helping out at the store June 12 when two robbers came inside. One man opened fire, reaching over the counter and shooting as Messaf cowered behind it, he said. Messaf was shot six times in his legs.
He said he suffered nerve damage in his left leg and has trouble sleeping.
Trammell said residents and business owners were scared by the recent violence but have faith that police are doing their best to stop it.
"I'm still shook up," Trammell said. "I'm not afraid, but we've worked so hard on Jefferson Davis -- so hard in that area to bring crime down."
Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or
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Reader Reactions
Dear hardcore,
I have zero interest in what you think I should do with my life or for a job. I don’t need to talk a job and look for interaction with crime. Crime simply happens because there are evil, sociopaths people in the world. I have a human right to defend myself, my loved ones and other ‘innocents’ as I see fit.
If you want to forgo your right to defend yourself….niffty! But, you have no right to tell others they should be defenseless victims.
Some aspects of human nature are timeless, so when the human condition changes and there are no more criminals then talk to me. Till that day comes, I will hold onto my right to self-defense.
This story is proof…that the right to self defense is timeless!
Hey guys please wake up.to all you right wingers,this is not a frontier anymore.If you want to carry openly and make a difference,please apply to the RPD.If you are MAN or WOMAN enough,i assure you your app will be apreciated.They are hiring!For all you lefty liberals,I won’t leave you out.what you keep preaching is hypotheticly sound,but this is not a perfect world,works great on paper just not on the streets.PLEASE quit whining and actually DO something to make things better.our system is not broken,but it is badly bent.It is gonna take a lot of real work and detemination from ALL of us to fix this.I live here and am not leaving.step up with us or please find some where else to live.
Opencarry win!
Armed law abiding citizen stops violent criminal and saves lives! ...I love good news!
GUN SAVE LIVES!
“Lack of gun control is probably what cause crimes like these in the first place.“ ??? Really? Like most criminals have jumped through all the hoops to legally purchase & register their weapon of choice…..duh huh. Like someone else said, tighter gun control will only effect law-abiding citizens. Most of them that do have guns also follow the motto “Don’t start nuttin’, won’t be nuttin’....“
Oh Jake . . . Jake, Jake, Jake!
“Well, I can’t seem to get anyone to really debate the issues”.
It seems to me that you have succeeded in getting people to debate with you, which I think we will all agree is a good thing.
“The reference to vigilantes was in response to the argument that appears in several posts here that laws and law enforcement are not effective, therefore we need “law abiding citizens” with guns. That implies more than self defense.“
No, Jake, I think that you’re over-reacting and mis-interpreting. If you’ll recall how the Committees of Vigilance worked, they enforced their idea of justice in territories and times during which—in their opinion—the lawful authorities would not or could not do so, or when there WAS no lawful authority. The bad part of that was that it could lead to lynchings . . . though the good part was that there was some deterrent to violent crimes.
You are the person who raised the term in the first place. I’ve just reviewed every previous comment in this thread, and I find neither mention nor even suggestion of pursuing criminal, or seeking revenge for crimes. YOU made that inference, with no justification which I could find. (Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)
The primary point of a citizen taking upon him/herself the responsibility of carrying a firearm is self-defense, and the defense of innocents—not some sort of “vigilante justice”. If you stop and think for just a moment, you’ll realize that we can never afford to hire enough police officers to have one on every single street corner, much less in every store and home. (“afford” refers to more than money, BTW, it refers to the inevitable inhibitory effect that that sort of police presence would have on legal activity by law-abiding citizens.)
The police are usually not present at a crime scene. They come—usually—when they are called. In the moments of an assault, robbery, shooting, or murder—these take seconds!—they will not be there. If you are not armed, what defense do you have? Bear in mind also that the police are NOT responsible for protecting you. If you call and they don’t bother to show up, or negligently go to the wrong place, you CANNOT sue them.
“whatever benefit comes from widespread gun ownership in situations like this, the dangers outweigh them”
You say this as though it meant something. Jake, EVEN IF it were true that gun ownership were more dangerous than being defenseless, it is my RIGHT. Not “privilege”, but “right”. Just as in other areas of risk management, we are more comfortable with situations where we exercise some control than in those in which we exercise no control.
“It isn’t worth it.“
For you, obviously not. I suggest that you not carry a firearm. For many of us, however, it is worth it.
“I’ll bet if Jefferson and Washington saw the state of things now, they’d see gun ownership differently.“
You may be right, though I think not. We have only their sentiments and actions by which to judge, and they were certainly not commenting on today’s society. On the other hand, would you agree that Jefferson would have viewed the First Amendment differently, now that we have not merely town criers and steam- or water-powered printing presses, but also radio, TV, the Internet, and cable?
Have a nice life, Jake. If I happen to be present when someone is assaulting you, be sure to speak up loudly and quickly to object, or I’ll have to end up protecting you, and I’m sure that would wound your sensibilities.
Small correction: Northern Ireland is a few places back from the U.S. But we’re #1!! A dubious honor.
Think about it Susan. I can use exactly the same logic to make the opposite point. A single instance - as dramatic as it may be - does not prove anything. I’m happy the folks who survived did; by itself it doesn’t prove a *(&^ thing. So: A guy on the north side of Richmond was killed recently by a friend who was reloading his gun. If you were that guy you’d prefer that your friend didn’t have access to a gun, huh. That doesn’t prove anything either.
Your stats are somewhat more worthy of response. If you look at your own sources you’ll see that the DGU issue is highly disputed and varies _depending on where the researchers stand on the issue_, which affects how they define a DGU etc. Even if the 2 million DGU number is accurate, it does _not_ mean that 2 million lives were saved. All it means is that someone reported referring to or pulling a gun to defend themselves at some point.
How about these statistics instead? Compared to Europe and several other countries, the U.S. is off the charts for gun deaths per 100 thousand population. The closest second to us? Northern Ireland! http://www.guncontrol.ca/Content/international.html
Jake67 said:
“It isn’t worth it.“
From the article:
“A gunman who had wounded a shopkeeper and opened fire on several customers was stopped yesterday when another man shot him at the store in South Richmond, authorities said.“
Anybody think that shopkeeper or any of those several customers would agree with Jake?
Bet even Jake wouldn’t agree with Jake if he’d been one of the several customers.
Jake67 said:
“Look at the statistics for accidental and other gun deaths and compare that to the number of times a citizen (non-police) stops violence from happening with a gun. It isn’t worth it.“
Here are the statistics.
2004 10 Leading causes of Injury Death
1) Unintentional Motor Vehicle Traffic 43,432
2) Unintentional Poisoning 20,950
3) Unintentional Fall 18,807
4) Suicide Firearm 16,750
5) Homicide Firearm 11,624
6) Suicide Suffocation 7,336
7) Unintentional Unspecified 6,173
8) Unintentional Suffocation 5,891
9) Suicide Poisoning 5,800
10) Undetermined Poisoning 3,455
“"There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU’s) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993. Prior to Dr. Kleck’s survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000 to 2.5 million DGU’s annually. However these surveys each had their flaws which prompted Dr. Kleck to conduct his own study specifically tailored to estimate the number of DGU’s annually.
Subsequent to Kleck’s study, the Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994 titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (text, PDF). Using a smaller sample size than Kleck’s, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU’s annually.
There is one study, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which in 1993, estimated 108,000 DGU’s annually. Why the huge discrepancy between this survey and fourteen others?“
Low: 108,000
High: 2,500,000
Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog
It’s worth it.
Well, I can’t seem to get anyone to really debate the issues (see previous post). A couple of responses (even though the tone of the posts makes me doubt the usefulness of doing so:
Roy: The reference to vigilantes was in response to the argument that appears in several posts here that laws and law enforcement are not effective, therefore we need “law abiding citizens” with guns. That implies more than self defense. And my solution to the situation in the convenience store is to reply that whatever benefit comes from widespread gun ownership in situations like this, the dangers outweigh them if you look at the large picture. Look at the statistics for accidental and other gun deaths and compare that to the number of times a citizen (non-police) stops violence from happening with a gun. It isn’t worth it.
Reverend: definitions and quotations do not an argument make. I’ll bet if Jefferson and Washington saw the state of things now, they’d see gun ownership differently.
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