Free Republic

An exchange of gunfire between a security guard and an alleged robber at the Mars Super Market on Maiden Choice Lane and Westland Boulevard, in Arbutus, Sunday evening left the alleged robber with several gunshot wounds, according to Baltimore County police. It also left the store, at the Maiden Choice Shopping Center in the 1000 block of Maiden Choice Lane, without some of its front windows — which were boarded up Monday morning. Neither the guard nor any customers in the store were injured, police said. At 6:52 p.m. June 21, Jamison Harvey Johnson, 40, entered the store and “announced...

Victim was hit in the head with a handgun By KATIE LESLIE The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Monday, June 29, 2009 Another Georgia Tech student was robbed at gunpoint early Monday, making him the 13th person to be mugged near campus since February. The robbery occurred at 1:15 a.m. in the Home Park neighborhood between the northern edge of Georgia Tech campus and Atlantic Station, according to Atlanta Police Department Spokesman Officer Otis Redmond. The student, whose name has not been released, told police he was approached by males in a dark SUV, with at least two of the robbers armed with...

A Kansas City, Kan., corner-store clerk fought back when two men tried to rob him tonight, shooting and killing one suspect and critically injuring the other, police said. Officers were called to the 5th Avenue Convenience Mart at Fifth Street and Quindaro Boulevard shortly before 7 p.m., Officer Mike Golden said. The clerk told them two men with long guns entered the store and demanded money, Golden said. When one of the suspects fired a shot, the clerk grabbed a handgun from behind the counter and shot both suspects. One ran halfway up the block before collapsing, dropping a gun...

(WSB Radio) Despite an increased police presence, armed robbers have struck again near the Georgia Tech campus.This time it was at the Centennial Place Apartments, at Honeycutt and Lovejoy.  And this time the victim lost his college bookbag containing his laptop.Eric Mills was walking home early Wednesday morning when he noticed an SUV that made him suspicious."I continued walking and i'm on my cellphone, talking," Mills says.  "All of a sudden, I felt a presence behind me."Mills says he turned around and saw two men approaching him in "an aggressive manner."Both were dressed in black.  One of the two...

MISSION VIEJO, Calif.—Cyndi Orel worked as a police officer for 25 years and never caught a bank robber. She was apparently saving that hobby for retirement. The retired Long Beach police officer foiled a bank robbery at a grocery store Saturday when she put a 220-pound bank robber in a chokehold until he passed out. Orel is about 5 feet 7 inches and 128 pounds

SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) -- Raul Flores thought federal agents had barged with guns drawn into his home in Arivaca, Arizona, in the middle of the night. Shawna Forde, 41, denies involvement in the shooting deaths of an Arizona man and his daughter. 1 of 3 The woman and two men wore uniforms and identified themselves as U.S. Marshals. They claimed the house was surrounded. They said they were looking for an escaped prisoner, Flores' wife told a 911 dispatcher. But there was no backup waiting outside, and no fugitive. The marshals were imposters. They had targeted Flores because they suspected...

ATLANTA -- A robber held-up a Georgia Tech student at gunpoint early Tuesday morning, the latest in a string of armed robberies on or near the campus.The gunman confronted the Tech graduate student about 1:00 a.m. on Luckie Street in downtown Atlanta as the victim walked to his apartment.The robber demanded everything the student was carrying. A neighbor who saw the incident stepped out of her unit at the Centennial Street apartments and began screaming for help.The robber got away with a pack of cigarettes.One neighbor complained to Channel 2 Action News reporter Ryan Young that the string of robberies...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A young woman who worked at a Denny's Restaurant on Albuquerque's West Side was killed Saturday morning during what police describe as a takeover-style robbery, and officers are still searching for suspects. Police by mid-afternoon Saturday detained two possible suspects from the 10 a.m. robbery at the Denny's on Coors Boulevard at Iliff Road NW. "Four masked men came in with guns," Brian Thompson told News 13. "Two went toward the back. That's all we could see because we all hit the ground." Albuquerque police spokeswoman Nadine Hamby said witnesses told police they saw between two and...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A young woman who worked at a Denny's Restaurant on Albuquerque's West Side was killed Saturday morning during what police describe as a takeover-style robbery, and officers are still searching for suspects. Police by mid-afternoon Saturday detained two possible suspects from the 10 a.m. robbery at the Denny's on Coors Boulevard at Iliff Road NW. "Four masked men came in with guns," Brian Thompson told News 13. "Two went toward the back. That's all we could see because we all hit the ground." Albuquerque police spokeswoman Nadine Hamby said witnesses told police they saw between two and...

Police in Albuquerque said a restaurant employee has been killed after several armed suspects attempted a takeover-style robbery at a packed Denny's Restaurant. Police spokeswoman Officer Nadine Hamby said "multiple" armed suspects rushed the northwest Albuquerque restaurant at about 9:30 a.m. Saturday. As many as 100 people were inside. A Saturday morning breakfast for 60 restaurant guests quickly turned into a nightmare.

PHOENIX — The Rev. Al Sharpton on Friday called for opponents of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has aggressively cracked down on illegal immigration, to videotape alleged racial profiling by the sheriff’s office. The civil rights leader said the videos will help the U.S. Department of Justice in an investigation of alleged civil rights abuses by Arpaio’s office. “We’re gonna start some freedom rides around this county, to show how people of a certain skin color are treated different than other people,” Sharpton told a crowd of several hundred people at the Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church in Phoenix. Sharpton...

A Georgia liquor store clerk credits his police officer son with giving him two life-saving gifts — a cell phone and a gun. Joseph Wescott says the phone he slipped into his shirt pocket stopped a knife to his chest when a robbery suspect attacked him at the store in a northern Atlanta suburb. He then reached under the counter for the .40-caliber handgun and shot the man. "The knife that he had looked like it was about 10-foot long," the 67-year-old Wescott exclaimed.

ROSWELL, Ga. — A Georgia liquor store clerk credits his police officer son with giving him two life-saving gifts — a cell phone and a gun. Joseph Wescott says the phone he slipped into his shirt pocket stopped a knife to his chest when a robbery suspect attacked him at the store in a northern Atlanta suburb. He then reached under the counter for the .40-caliber handgun and shot the man. "The knife that he had looked like it was about 10-foot long," the 67-year-old Wescott exclaimed. When the suspect lunged at Wescott, he fell back and the knife struck...

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - One person is dead after an overnight shooting. According to the Richland County Sheriff's Department, the incident happened just after midnight at the Colonial Villa Apartments. Investigators say a security guard for the Garner's Ferry Road apartment complex was in his car doing paperwork when another man approached. The man demanded the security guard's gun. Deputies say the security guard pulled his weapon from the holster and pointed it at the suspect. That's when, according to deputies, the suspect lunged for the gun. The security guard fired one shot, striking the man in the upper body....

TUCSON, AZ—Connie S. Wilkinson, 54, of Tucson, Ariz., was sentenced here Monday by U.S. District Judge David C. Bury to 27 months in federal prison, and ordered to pay restitution of $365,816 to the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System. Wilkinson pleaded guilty on October 2, 2008 to Theft of Public Money, Wire Fraud and Mail Fraud. Wilkinson was the Clinical Director of Education and Training at Southern Arizona Veteran's Affairs Heath Care System (VA) in Tucson, Arizona, between 1999 and 2006, and was issued a government credit card to pay for legitimate expenses in connection with her position. Through...

TROY -- A Domino's Pizza employee who last month foiled a robbery attempt was shot four times in what was believed to be another robbery attempt this morning, police said. Street pizza shop at 12:30 a.m. He suffered serious injuries and was in surgery at Albany Medical Center earlier today. He is expected to survive, police said. On May 9, Geraw tackled and subdued a knife-wielding man who was trying to rob the store. He held the robber until Troy Police arrived. Troy police and detectives are talking to witnesses and a canvass of the area is being conducted.

NORFOLK, Va. - An attempted robbery led to a gunfight at a Norfolk motel Thursday. Three suspects, one armed with a handgun, stormed into a room at the Econo Lodge. Much to the surprise of the suspected criminals, one of the victims was also carrying a gun. Police say two of the suspects were shot by the victim. One of the suspects died at the scene, the other was transported to a local hospital where he remains in critical condition. The suspect who died has been identified as 22-year-old Dante Cooley of Virginia Beach. Police have not yet released the...

Nearly three months before her fatal stand-off with Rock Hill Police, 15-year-old Yvette Williams had enrolled in a program to help young people get out of gangs. Williams was the first student to sign up with Project GO — short for Gang Out — in Rock Hill. The middle-schooler had some gang affiliations, said Project GO executive director A.V. Strong, but she was working hard to get out. Strong said he last saw Williams at a church workshop, and he spoke Tuesday at her funeral. Strong, who supervises the statewide program from Columbia, said the teen was making progress. He...

To hear some in Georgia, you might think that having armed customers in a store makes for a very serious danger of somebody getting shot in the foot. In this case, they would be correct. Last weekend, a female armed robber (newsworthy on its own) decided to don a ski mask, carry a gun, and rob a convenience store in Tift County, Georgia. This turned out to be the wrong convenience store to rob at that particular time. The news report tells us what happened next: . . . a customer already at the register pulled out his gun and...

The two men who were shot by a security guard while trying to rob a Milwaukee check cashing business last week were armed with realistic-looking BB guns, according to a Police Department spokeswoman. Ronald X. Reed Jr., 24, was shot in the back and died at the scene, police said. His cousin, 22-year-old Vidal D. Mason, was shot in the abdomen. The BB guns "looked very much like authentic weapons," police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz wrote in an e-mail. The men also used BB guns while committing a string of armed robberies in 2005, court records show. Reed and Mason...

Let’s get this up front: One does not walk deliberately up to an armored car guard, aim a handgun at his face and unintentionally put a bullet through his head; a bullet that strikes an innocent bystander. But that is what 34-year-old Calvin Finley, one of four suspects in the brutal robbery/murder at the Lakewood Wal-Mart Tuesday, June 2 that left veteran guard Kurt Husted, 39, dead and customer Wilbert Pina wounded in the shoulder, is reportedly claiming in a court document that leaves one shuddering. Armed citizens carry guns not to commit heinous acts like this, but to defend...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An owner of a New York store thwarted a robbery only to take pity on the perpetrator, who claimed he could not feed his family, and gave the man $40 and a loaf of bread, a video of the incident showed. A video posted on Tuesday by the Newsday newspaper on its website www.newsday.com showed a masked man wielding a bat as he entered a convenience store in Shirley, Long Island, just after midnight on May 21 and demanded money. But when the store's owner, identified by the local Channel 12 TV station as Mohammad Sohail,...

Nora R. Dannehy, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that MARCELAS HINES, also known as “Cell,” 23, of Emerson Street, New Haven, pleaded guilty today before United States District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant in Hartford to one count of conspiracy to interfere with interstate commerce by committing robbery. According to documents filed with the Court and statements made in court, the charge against HINES is the result of a joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New Haven Police Department. The investigation revealed that, on December 21, 2008, HINES and a co-conspirator agreed...

The weapon wasn't loaded, but the desperate thief didn't know, as security cameras rolled, catching every second of the incredible crime. "He tell me, 'give me your money.' I say 'hold on, drop weapon get down,'" Sohail said. The would-be thief suddenly surrendered, got down on his knees, blubbering and sobbing like a baby. "He was begging, crying 'I'm sorry. I have no money, no food, no job. My family's hungry,'" Sohail said. "He's really crying, 'please don't call police.'" Sohail has a soft heart for a man down on his luck and he'd struggled in the past, too. So...

Like so many stories in the Bayview that end badly, Haggag Mohsin's started with a gun. Yet the 9mm semiautomatic pistol with the loaded magazine kept behind the counter of his brother's hip-hop clothing store, Pop Ya Collar, wasn't supposed to be used to commit a crime, but to protect him from being the victim of one. Before the 21-year-old Mohsin pulled the trigger, October 11, 2006, had started like any other day. He opened Pop Ya Collar around 10 a.m., where he manned the register. His brother Adeeb came in to chat for a bit before walking to his...

Recently, two pharmacies in two different states experienced attempted robberies. In both cases, the pharmacist was able to secure a handgun, kill one robber, and successfully protect both co-workers and property. In one case, the police chief quickly announced the shooting justified. In the other, the district attorney filed first-degree murder charges against the pharmacist. The two cases provide what firearms instructors call a “teachable moment.”

SALT LAKE CITY -- Armed assailants attack and rob a Latter-day Saint Apostle, his wife and two other couples in the African nation of Mozambique. Elder Russell M. Nelson and his wife, Wendy, were on a Church assignment when the incident happened. According to Church spokesman Scott Trotter, the wife of the mission President Blair Packard suffered a broken arm. She and others also have cuts and bruises. Elder William and Sister Shanna Parmley of the Africa Southeast Area Presidency. Elder and Sister Nelson traveled to Mozambique for these weekend meetings with Church leaders there; Elder William and Sister Shanna...

Just before walking into Babcock Square Pharmacy, the gunman lurked suspiciously around the parking lot Wednesday morning — even moving his car several times before making his move. Carole Ann Aguirre, manager of the neighboring Martha's Mexican Restaurant, said the white Honda lingered enough that her grandson, Christopher, mistook it as that of a relative's and walked up to it. “He opened the car door and thought it was his uncle,” Aguirre said. “But he saw the man had a bandana around his face and was wearing rubber gloves, so he came back in and told us what happened.” Aguirre's...

Bad news for top tier recruit. WEB EXTRA: See the criminal report press release from Tallahassee Police Department. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A future Marshall quarterback finds himself in trouble with the law. WCTV-TV in Tallahassee, Florida is reporting that A.J. Graham has been arrested on robbery charges. Tallahassee Police confirmed the arrest took place on Tuesday afternoon, however the alleged robbery happened on Friday in Tallahassee. Graham signed a scholarship to play football at Marshall University this fall. In a written statement Wednesday, Marshall University Head Football Coach Mark Snyder said Graham's scholarship had been revoked. Stay with WOWKTV.com for...

For five months in 2007 and 2008, a masked man with a gun and blue surgical gloves terrorized residents and travelers of the Columbia River Gorge. Robber has record in California He robbed a pair of college students as they gazed up at the stars at Crown Point. After taking their cell phones, cash and car keys, they ran two miles to the nearest home to call police. He ordered a pregnant woman and her two children to the floor of a restaurant -- the stress causing her to go into contractions. Her children, ages 9 and 11, were so...

On Oct. 3, as the spreading economic meltdown threatened to topple financial behemoths like American International Group (AIG) and Bank of America and plunged global markets into free fall, the U.S. government responded with the largest bailout in American history. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, better known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), authorized the use of $700 billion to stabilize the nation's failing financial systems and restore the flow of credit in the economy. The legislation's guidelines for crafting the rescue plan were clear: The TARP should protect home values and consumer savings, help citizens keep...

State and local governments are asking Washington to give them something that banks are trying to get rid of: federal bailout money. California is asking that money from the Treasury’s TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, be used to help back more than $13 billion in short-term borrowings. Members of Congress and several municipalities want bailout money to be used to cover more than $1 billion in losses from investments by municipalities in debt issued by Lehman Brothers, the investment bank that went bust. And Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is drafting legislation that would...

Atlanta, GA—DESMOND COOPER, 26, of Duluth, Georgia was arrested today on an indictment returned by a federal grand jury on May 19, 2009. COOPER is charged with one count of Hobbs Act robbery and one count of possessing a firearm during the commission of a violent felony. COOPER had his initial appearance and arraignment today before United States Magistrate Judge Linda T. Walker. A detention hearing for COOPER has been scheduled for May 28, 2009, at 11 a.m. before United States Magistrate Judge Linda T. Walker. Another defendant named in the indictment, CRAIG CARROLL, is also charged with one count...

United States Attorney Laurie Magid today announced the filing of an indictment1 against Kendall Jamal McGill and Richard Rivera Jr., charging then with conspiring to interfere with interstate commerce by robbery, attempted interference with interstate commerce by robbery, and with using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. These offenses arise from the defendants’ participation in the October 9, 2008 attempted armed robbery of the Denim Blue Store, located at 6910 Torresdale Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during which a store employee was shot in the leg If convicted of all charges, each defendant faces...

SPANAWAY, Wash. - A surveillance camera has captured footage of the same armed man robbing the same Pierce County gas station twice, a few days apart, then saying "bye-bye" and apologizing to the clerk after the second robbery. Pierce County sheriff's deputies first responded to the Shell station, in the 15900 block of Pacific Avenue South in Spanaway, on May 5 at 3:50 a.m. Deputies said video footage showed the man entering the store, asking the clerk for a pack of cigarettes, then displaying a gun concealed inside his jacket. The man demanded cash and threatened to shoot the clerk....

A Central Georgia man is recovering from a gunshot wound; he got shot after robbing a Macon liquor store at gun point. A news release from Sgt. Melanie Hofmann with the Macon Police says 50-year-old Ricky Nell Johnson robbed the ABC Liquor Store at 1194 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. on Saturday. The release says Johnson entered the store around 6:45 p.m. wearing a wig and skirt. It says he showed a handgun, jumped on the counter and demanded money. After getting some cash, Johnson fired a shot and ran out of the liquor store. The release says an employee...

Senators are considering limiting — but not eliminating — the tax-free status of employer-provided health benefits to help pay for President Barack Obama's overhaul plan and provide coverage to 50 million uninsured Americans. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Tuesday that there are no easy options. Senators began grappling with how to finance guaranteed coverage for all Americans, even as independent experts put the costs at about $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Obama sees a world in which doctors and hospitals compete to offer quality service at lower costs, and the savings help cover the uninsured. Turning that vision...

A self-described aspiring rapper confessed to robbing a convenience store Friday night and shooting a clerk in the temple with a BB gun in a misguided effort to gain "street credibility" for his career in Gainesville hip-hop, according to police. Steven Gilmore Jr., 21, was arrested in his Gainesville Place Apartment, at 2800 S.W. 35th Place, after a tip led police to his home. Gilmore confessed to the Friday night robbery and to a robbery last week of Hungry Howie's restaurant, police said. Police also arrested Gilmore's accomplice, a 16-year-old who police said served as a lookout for the Friday...

This is the chart they don't want you to see: the purchasing power of the dollar over the past 76 years has declined by 94%. And based on current monetary and fiscal policy, we have at least another 94% to go. The only question is whether this will be achieved in 76 months this time. (Click chart to enlarge.)

VALLEJO, Calif. -- Three men strolled into a Vallejo gas station late Wednesday night and exchanged gunfire with a clerk, leaving him with a bullet lodged in his neck before fleeing in a failed robbery attempt caught on videotape. [...excerpted for fair use...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Police said a man was shot when he tried to rob a northeast side gas station on Tuesday morning. The armed robber entered the BP gas station, located at 1959 17th Ave., shortly after midnight, 10TV's Tino Ramos reported. The man confronted the clerk, who had a gun behind the counter. The clerk shot the robber and he collapsed outside.

A Republican lawmaker has enraged supporters of "hate crimes" legislation for suggesting that the horrible murder of Matthew Shepard was not motivated by anti-homosexual bigotry. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) drew the ire of homosexual activists and other supporters of hate crimes legislation last week when she suggested that the tragic 1998 murder of college student Matthew Shepard was not a hate crime. "We know that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn't because he was gay," Foxx said on the House floor. "The bill was named for him -- the hate crimes bill was...

POLK COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- A Polk County man shot at two robbery suspects Tuesday morning when he thought they were going to run him down. One of the suspects was hit in the head and died, and the other is still at large. The incident happened near a citrus grove on Rifle Range Road in the Wahneta area of Winter Haven. Property owner Jamie Jones heard a commotion outside while working inside his shed just before dawn. Jones told detectives a man and woman were driving away in his Land Rover. He said after they saw him, they...

AUGUSTA, Ga.---An 18-year-old was shot after investigators say he tried to rob a pizza deliveryman at an empty house. A delivery in Augusta turned into a crime scene Sunday for Papa Johns Driver Tavarius Lewis. When he tried to deliver a pizza to this house on Dent Street Sunday night, investigators say Kevin Martin pulled a BB gun and tried to rob Lewis. "[Lewis] started backing up, reached in his pocket and pulled out a .40 caliber handgun and shot the suspect," said Sgt. Blaise Dresser, of the Richmond County Sheriff's Office. Dresser says Lewis shot in self-defense, not realizing...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two men were hospitalized on Wednesday after they were shot during a hold up at a drive-thru on the city's northeast side, 10TV News reported. The shooting occurred at about 3:30 p.m. at Dani's Drive-Thru, located near the corner of Westerville and Agler roads. Investigators said a man walked inside and tried to rob the clerk, but the clerk produced a gun and opened fire, wounding the man in the legs, 10TV News reported. The man was apprehended about a block away near a home on Cleveland Avenue. The other person wounded in the shooting may have...

AUGUSTA, Ga.---It was a robbery with a big surprise for the robber. A gunman walked into a CVS drugstore expecting to hold up the place. What he didn't expect was to find a pharmacist who had a gun and was not afraid to use it. The shooting happened just after midnight at the CVS on Walton Way and 15th Street. Investigators say this isn't the first time CVS has been robbed, but this time was different. A pharmacist fired at the suspect, protecting himself and the store. The surveillance pictures tell the story. In a matter of seconds a masked...

WESTERVILLE, Ohio—A smash and grab robbery in the parking lot of a Westerville restaurant Friday night ended with three robbers getting away with two cases of jewelry as the rightful owner fired shots to try to prevent them from the theft. Westerville police said that an Indiana jeweler was looking for Easton Towne Center after he left a gem show at the Ohio Exhibition Center, NBC 4‘s Mike Bowersock reported. The jeweler ended up in a Fazoli’s parking lot in Westerville at about and sent his wife and daughter inside while he attempted to figure out his GPS. According to...

Sen. Raymond Lesniak says he was robbed early Saturday by two young men who broke into his Elizabeth home while he was sleeping. Lesniak tells The Star-Ledger of Newark that he was woken up by noise and saw two men standing just feet from his bed. The Union County Democrat tells the newspaper that the men seemed surprised to find anyone at home, and one suggested they shoot him, though Lesniak did not see a gun. The 62-year-old Lesniak says the men took cash, a cellular phone and the keys to his Lexus hybrid, which they left untouched in his...

NJ Senator Lesniak Says He Was Robbed At Home ELIZABETH, N.J. (AP) ― Sen. Raymond Lesniak says he was robbed early Saturday by two young men who broke into his Elizabeth home while he was sleeping.Lesniak tells The Star-Ledger of Newark that he was woken up by noise and saw two men standing just feet from his bed.The Union County Democrat tells the newspaper that the men seemed surprised to find anyone at home, and one suggested they shoot him, though Lesniak did not see a gun. The 62-year-old Lesniak says the men took cash, a cellular phone and the...

I love positive stories about pit bulls. I've pretty much always had dogs in my life, and, for the last 14 years or so, those dogs have been pit bulls. There's so much negative press about the breed, and a tremendous amount of ignorance. The more people get to know pitties, the more they love them. So here's a great little clip from some Oklahoma news broadcast about Lilly the pit bull... who went from couch potato to hero.